2020 EJRNL PP Ke-Jin Jiao -1.pdf
Terbatas Irwan Sofiyan
» ITB
Terbatas Irwan Sofiyan
» ITB
Electrochemical synthesis of organic compounds has emerged as an attractive
and environmentally benign alternative to conventional approaches for oxidation and reduction
of organic compounds that utilizes electric current instead of chemical oxidants and reductants.
As such, many useful transformations have been developed, including the Kolbe reaction, the
Simons fluorination process, the Monsanto adiponitrile process, and the Shono oxidation, to
name a few. Electrochemical C?H functionalization represents one of the most promising
reaction types among many electrochemical transformations, since this process avoids
prefunctionalization of substrates and provides novel retrosynthetic disconnections. However,
site-selective anodic oxidation of C?H bonds is still a fundamental challenge due to the high
oxidation potentials of C?H bonds compared to organic solvents and common functional
groups. To overcome this issue, indirect electrolysis via the action of a mediator (a redox
catalyst) is regularly employed, by which the selectivity can be controlled following reaction of
said mediator with the substrate. Since the redox potentials of transition metal complexes can
be easily tuned by modification of the ligand, the synergistic use of electrochemistry and transition metal catalysis to achieve siteselective C?H functionalization is an attractive strategy.