Progress in the oxidative dehydrogenation of light alkanes to light olefins on metal-free catalysts

Alkene Hydrobenzylation by a Single Catalyst That Mediates Iterative Outer-Sphere Steps

“…Each alkene carbon would react with an iron catalytic intermediate where single electron density resides on a reacting ligand, as previously suggested . Among the products of these cross-couplings are benzyl heterodimers, privileged motifs among drug substances that are difficult to access from two benzyl fragments, − especially to generate the quaternary carbons demonstrated here.…”

“…Hetereocycles, however, were restricted to low-Lewis basicity/low-nucleophilicity motifs to prevent self-alkylation and coordinative deactivation of the iron catalyst . It is noteworthy that common methods to access 1,2-diarylethanes do not lead to quaternary carbons, and the less-common Kumada or Negishi approaches rely on stoichiometric, neo -pentyl organometallics. In contrast, the quaternary carbons produced in Table can be formed under mild conditions and in protic solvent.…”