Electrochemical Arylation of Aldehydes, Ketones, and Alcohols: from Cathodic Reduction to Convergent Paired Electrolysis

• DOI: 10.1002/anie.202015230
• Publication Date: 2020-12-30T08:33:30Z
• Authors: Sheng Zhang; Lijun Li; Jingjing Li; Jianxue Shi; Kun Xu; Wenchao Gao; Luyi Zong; Guigen Li; Michael Findlater
• Keywords: Alcohol Oxidation

Abstract Arylation of carbonyls, one the most common approaches toward alcohols, has received tremendous attention, as alcohols are important feedstocks and building blocks in organic synthesis. Despite great progress, there is still a gap to develop an ideal arylation method featuring mild conditions, good functional group tolerance, readily available starting materials. We now show that electrochemical can fill gap. By taking advantage synthetic electrochemistry, commercially aldehydes (ketones) benzylic be arylated provide general scalable access structurally diverse (97 examples, >10 gram‐scale). More importantly, convergent paired electrolysis, but challenging technology, was employed transform low‐value into more useful alcohols. Detailed mechanism study suggests two plausible pathways involved redox neutral α‐arylation