Singly occupied molecular orbital (SOMO) activation provides a pathway for asymmetric a-addition to aldehydes. [1] The scope of SOMO activation includes the allylation, enolation, vinylation, styrenation, chlorination, polyene cyclization, and arylation [2] of a range of aldehydes. This union of organocatalysis with single-electron oxidative coupling is an intricate process involving the complex balance of catalyst, oxidant, radicophile, base, temperature, heterogeneous reaction conditions, and H 2 O. To examine the role of each component in this complex process, a series of spectroscopic and kinetic studies were carried out to study the asymmetric allylation of 1 shown in Equation (1).[1a] The data described herein show three important features: 1) Oxidation of the intermediate enamine is rapid and preferential to oxidation of the catalyst, 2) H 2 O concentration is critical for catalytic efficiency, and 3) the kinetic role of ceric ammonium nitrate (CAN) is masked by a physical phase-transfer process.The mechanism of the system is challenging to study since it is heterogeneous, but findings from initial work show that the presence of H 2 O is important for reaction success.[1a]Additionally, one of the key design features of the process involves reaction of the catalyst (3) with the substrate to form an intermediate enamine that is preferentially oxidized in the presence of catalyst or substrate. Previous studies show that enamines [3] are more readily oxidized than amines. [4] To further explore the selectivity of the oxidation, a series of amines and enamines derived from imidazolidinone catalysts were studied using stopped-flow spectrophotometry in an attempt to determine the impact of the structure on the rate of a single-electron oxidation. A range of single-electron oxidants based on Ce IV , Cu II , and Fe III were explored. In each case, enamine oxidation was faster than the mixing time of the stopped-flow spectrophotometer even at reduced temperatures (À10 8C). Conversely, oxidation of the catalyst was slower than the time-scale of the stopped-flow system (1000 s). Although these findings did not provide the structure-reactivity relationships initially desired, they indicated that oxidation of the enamine is significantly more rapid under homogeneous conditions than oxidation of the catalyst.Since the SOMO system is mechanistically complex, reaction progress kinetic analysis (RPKA) was employed to study the reaction in Equation (1). This approach, described by Blackmond, provides an elegant method for the study of mechanistic properties under synthetic conditions.[5] To utilize RPKA, two factors are necessary: 1) a detailed understanding of the stoichiometry of the reagents used, and 2) an understanding of the concept of excess. Excess (e) is defined as the difference in initial stoichiometric concentrations of a reagent (CAN) and the monitored substrate (1) [Eq 2].The "same excess" protocol [5] determines whether the active catalyst concentration remains constant throughout the reaction. Initially, t...