Electrochemical Transition‐Metal‐Catalyzed C−H Bond Functionalization: Electricity as Clean Surrogates of Chemical Oxidants

• Published in: ChemSusChem 2019-01, Vol.12 (1), p.115-132
• Main Authors: Chen, Jianbin, Lv, Shide, Tian, Siyu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Activation; C−H activation; electrochemistry; green chemistry; heterogeneous catalysis; Hydrogen bonds; Iodine; Organic chemistry; Organic peroxides; Oxidizing agents; Peroxides; Potassium persulfate; Silver; Substrates; Transition metals
• ISSN: 1864-5631; 1864-564X
• DOI: 10.1002/cssc.201801946

Transition‐metal‐catalyzed C−H activation has attracted much attention from the organic synthetic community because it obviates the need to prefunctionalize substrates. However, superstoichiometric chemical oxidants, such as copper‐ or silver‐based metal oxidants, benzoquinones, organic peroxides, K2S2O8, hypervalent iodine, and O2, are required for most of the reactions. Thus, the development of environmentally benign and user‐friendly C−H bond activation protocols, in the absence of chemical oxidants, are urgently desired. The inherent advantages and unique characteristics of organic electrosynthesis make fill this gap. Herein, recent progress in this area (until the end of September 2018) is summarized for different transition metals to highlight the potential sustainability of electro‐organic chemistry. Cleaning up catalysts: Compared with well‐developed transition‐metal‐catalyzed C−H bond functionalization, the analogous green chemistry electrochemical version is underexplored. Recent advances in transition‐metal‐catalyzed electrochemical C−H activation are summarized to highlight the remarkable advantage of clean replacements for chemical redox regents.