C–P bonds are widely found in a great many bioactive compounds and functional molecules. Transition-metal-catalyzed dehydrogenative C–H/P–H cross-coupling plays a crucial part in C–P bond formation since it requires no pretreatment of substrates. Herein, we reported a Mn-catalyzed electrochemical intermolecular dehydrogenative cross-coupling between aryl C–H and diphenyl phosphine oxides. In undivided cells, a series of phosphorylation or diphosphorylation products could be obtained separately by adjusting the proportion of substrates. A catalytic amount of inexpensive Mn­(II) salt was used, and no external chemical oxidants were needed in this process. A kinetic isotope effect experiment suggested that the C–H activation was not the rate-determining step.

The kinetic resolution (KR) of racemates is one of the most widely used approaches to access enantiomerically pure compounds. Over the past two decades, catalytic nonenzymatic KR has gained popularity in the field of asymmetric synthesis due to the rapid development of chiral catalysts and ligands in asymmetric catalysis. Chiral tertiary alcohols are prevalent in a variety of natural products, pharmaceuticals, and biologically active chiral compounds. The catalytic nonenzymatic KR of racemic tertiary alcohols is a straightforward strategy to access enantioenriched tertiary alcohols. This short review describes recent advances in catalytic nonenzymatic KR of tertiary alcohols, including organocatalysis and metal catalysis.