Cu-Catalyzed Methylenation of Alcohols with N-Methyl Amide as a Sustainable Methylene Reagent

Herein, we report a new approach to methylenation of alcohols using N-methyl amide as a sustainable methylene reagent; the N-methyl delivers the methylene group. This new reagent is easily prepared and stable to both air and moisture. Furthermore, the final byproduct of this methylene reagent can be recycled in excellent yields and then reused in methylenation reactions upon treating with CH₃I.

Recent Advance on Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) Used as a Multipurpose Reactant

Abstract:

Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is not only a common and cheap aprotic polar solvent with low toxicity, but also serves as an efficient and multipurpose reactant and has widely been used in organic synthesis. DMSO as an important precursor can effectively introducea broad range of functional fragments into organic molecules, such as -Me, -CH, -CH2, -SMe2, -CH2SMe, -CH2SOMe, -SMe, -SO2Me, -SOMe or as O substituents, and serves as a mild oxidant in organic transformations. Many significant achievements based on DMSO as a synthon in synthetic chemistry have rapidly made over the past several years. To help researchers further understand the recent advances in the field, the review summarizes the applications of DMSO as carbon, sulfur, and oxygen sources and is used as the dual synthon in synthetic transformations.

Tracking down the brominated single electron oxidants in recent organic red-ox transformations: photolysis and photocatalysis

A wide range of organic and inorganic brominated compounds including molecular bromine have been extensively used as oxidants in many organic photo-redox transformations in recent years, an area of ever growing interest because of greener and milder approaches. The oxidation power of these compounds is utilized through both mechanistic pathways (by hydrogen atom transfer or HAT in the absence of a photocatalyst and a combination of single electron transfer or SET and/or HAT in the presence of a photocatalyst). Not only as terminal oxidants for regeneration of photocatalysts, but brominated reactants have also contributed to the oxidation of the reaction intermediate(s) to carry on the radical chain process in several reactions. Here in this review mainly the non-brominative oxidative product formations are discussed, carried out since the last two decades, skipping the instances where they acted as terminal oxidants only to regenerate photocatalysts. The reactions are used to generate natural products, pharmaceuticals and beyond.

IrIII-Catalyzed direct syntheses of amides and esters using nitriles as acid equivalents: a photochemical pathway

An unprecedented Ir^III[df(CF₃)ppy]₂(dtbbpy)PF₆-catalyzed simple photochemical process for direct addition of amines and alcohols to the relatively less reactive nitrile triple bond is described herein.