Recent Advances in Radical Reactions of Azo Compounds

Abstract

Azo compounds have attracted much attention in the past decades, due to their unique properties. Recently, the free radical strategy has been widely applied to the chemical transformations of azobenzenes, dialkyl azodicarboxylates, mainly including hydrogenation and functionalization of N=N double bond, and N-functionalization reactions via the cleavage of the N=N double bonds. In this review, we systematically summarized these reactions as well as their mechanisms are discussed.

Photoredox-Catalyzed Hydroacylation of Azobenzenes with Carboxylic Acids

“…As the azobenzenes are typical photoresponsive molecules, considerable attention has been paid to their functionalization or transformation under photoredox catalysis in recent years. 13 In 2020, the Huo group reported a visible light-mediated protocol for the hydroacylation of azobenzene with α-keto acids (Scheme 1b). 14 The reaction provided a mild and external additive-free procedure for the synthesis of acyl hydrazide in which CO 2 was the only byproduct.…”