Reductive Deoxygenative Functionalization of Alcohols by First-Row Transition Metal Catalysis

Alcohols are among the most accessible functionalities.Catalytic deoxygenative functionalization of alcohols is highly synthetically appealing.While significant progress has been made on the reactions with nucleophiles,the reactions with electrophilic coupling partners remain a real challenge.This manuscript highlights the advance in this direction,which is mainly achieved by the first-row transition metals.The low-valent titanium catalyst has shown the unique reactivity to homolytically cleave the C—OH bonds.The formed carbon radicals could either undergo reduction to give protonation products or couple with carbon fragments to form C—C bonds.This chemistry is initially realized using a stoichiometric amount of titanium reagents and later extended to catalytic variants.Nickel features a variety of oxidation states ranging from Ni0 to NiIV,and both two-electron oxidative addition and single-electron process are involved in their activation of an electrophile.These properties enable nickel to catalyze reductive C—C coupling of alcohols with R–X electrophiles.The reaction is first reported on the reactions of allylic alcohols,then extended to benzylic alcohols and,very recently non-activated alcohols.Recent effort has resulted in many invaluable methodologies that highly improve the reaction efficiency for the construction of aliphatic C—C bonds.The use of cobalt and copper catalysts not only expands the substrate scope of these reactions but also shows the new reactivity and selectivity issues.

Nickel-catalyzed cross-electrophile C–Ge coupling of benzyl pivalates and chlorogermanes

The C–Ge cross-coupling offers a promising approach for the precise synthesis of organogermanes. However, the current methods are primarily effective in the germylation of organo(pseudo)halides. This work demonstrates the possibility of transferring low-cost and easily available ester groups into organogermanes through the cleavage of stable C–O bonds. Primary,secondary, and even tertiary benzylic pivalates were coupled well with chlorogermanes. The reactions proceed under mild conditions. The scalability of this reaction and derivatization of the formed benzylgermanes are demonstrated.

Mn-mediated reductive C(sp3)–Si coupling of activated secondary alkyl bromides with chlorosilanes

The construction of secondary alkylsilanes is a challenging subject in the synthetic community.The cross-coupling provides a practical solution to address this problem,but it typically relies on organometallic species.Herein,we report an Mn-mediated reductive C(sp^(3))-Si coupling to synthesize these compounds from alkyl and silyl electrophiles.This approach avoids the requirement for activation of Si-Cl by transition metals and thus allows for the coupling of various common chlorosilanes.The reaction proceeds under mild conditions and shows good functional group compatibility.The method offers access toα-silylated organophosphorus and sulfones with a scope that is complementary to those obtained from the established methods.

Nickel-Catalyzed Cross-Electrophile Vinyl–Vinyl Coupling:An Approach to Structurally Versatile Dienylboronates

Cross C–C bond formation of two vinyl electrophiles is a long-standing challenge in synthetic chemistry.Herein,we report a nickel-catalyzed reductive vinyl–vinyl coupling between vinyl triflates and boron-substituted vinyl bromides.This new protocol offers facile access to dienylboronates with high structural complexity and molecular diversity.The reaction proceeds with a broad substrate scope under very mild conditions.The synthetic utility of the method is highlighted by its gram-scale reaction,modification of complex molecules,and diverse transformation of the products.