Electrochemically driven aerobic oxygenation of alkylarenes to carbonyl compounds

Abstract

In this article, electrochemical aerobic oxidation method is developed that methylarenes and benzyl methylenes can be efficiently converted into the corresponding aryl aldehydes and aryl ketones using O2 as the oxygen source without any base or transition-metal catalyst. And multigram scale of aryl aldehyde and aryl ketone are also synthesized using inexpensive nickel foam as the electrode to demonstrate the practicality of this electrochemical oxidation strategy. In addition, the pharmaceutical molecule Fenbufen is facilely synthesized, implying the potential applications in pharmaceutical synthesis of this protocol. Furthermore, the control experiments suggest that the aerobic oxidation reaction undergoes a single-electron transfer (SET) mechanism.