Highly chemoselective direct reduction of primary, secondary, and tertiary amides to alcohols using SmI2/amine/H2O is reported. The reaction proceeds with C–N bond cleavage in the carbinolamine intermediate, shows excellent functional group tolerance, and delivers the alcohol products in very high yields. The expected C–O cleavage products are not formed under the reaction conditions. The observed reactivity is opposite to the electrophilicity of polar carbonyl groups resulting from the nX → π*C=O (X = O, N) conjugation. Mechanistic studies suggest that coordination of Sm to the carbonyl and then to Lewis basic nitrogen in the tetrahedral intermediate facilitate electron transfer and control the selectivity of the C–N/C–O cleavage. Notably, the method provides direct access to acyl-type radicals from unactivated amides under mild electron transfer conditions.

Samarium(II) iodide-water-amine reagents have emerged as some of the most powerful reagents (E° = -2.8 V) for the reduction of unactivated carboxylic acid derivatives to primary alcohols under single electron transfer conditions, a transformation that had been considered to lie outside the scope of the classic SmI2 reductant for more than 30 years. In this article, we present a detailed mechanistic investigation of the reduction of unactivated esters, carboxylic acids, and amides using SmI2-water-amine reagents, in which we compare the reactivity of three functional groups. The mechanism has been studied using the following: (i) kinetic, (ii) reactivity, (iii) radical clock, and (iv) isotopic labeling experiments. The kinetic data indicate that for the three functional groups all reaction components (SmI2, amine, water) are involved in the rate equation and that the rate of electron transfer is facilitated by base assisted deprotonation of water. Notably, the mechanistic details presented herein indicate that complexation between SmI2, water, and amines can result in a new class of structurally diverse, thermodynamically powerful reductants for efficient electron transfer to a variety of carboxylic acid derivatives. These observations will have important implications for the design and optimization of new processes involving Sm(II)-reduction of ketyl radicals.

A metal-free CH-CH-type coupling of arenes and alkynes, mediated by a multifunctional sulfoxide directing group, exploits nonprefunctionalized coupling partners, proceeds under mild conditions, is operationally simple, and exhibits high functional group tolerance. The products of the CH-CH coupling are highly versatile, and the metal-free process can be used for the construction and late-stage modification of important molecular scaffolds.

Aryl and heteroaryl sulfoxides undergo ortho allylation upon treatment with Tf(2)O and allylsilanes. The method complements the use of sulfoxides to direct ortho-metalation and reaction with electrophiles as it allows allylic carbon nucleophiles to be added ortho to the directing group in a metal-free process. The versatile sulfide adducts can be selectively manipulated using various methods including Kumada-Corriu cross-coupling of the organosulfanyl group.