Electrooxidative Dearomatization to Spiroisoxazolines: Application to Total Synthesis of Xanthoisoxazoline B

Aniline Derivatives from Lignin under Mild Conditions Enabled by Electrochemistry

The development of environmentally friendly methods for the valorization of important phenolic platform chemicals originating directly from lignin-first depolymerization into value-added N-chemicals, such as aniline derivatives, is of high industrial interest. In this work, we tackle this challenging transformation by the judicious combination of electrochemical conversion and chemical functionalization steps. In the first step, lignin-derived para-substituted guaiacols and syringols undergo an atom-efficient, room-temperature anodic oxidation using methanol both as solvent and reagent towards the formation of the corresponding cyclohexadienone derivatives, which are subsequently converted to synthetically challenging ortho-methoxy substituted anilines by reaction with ethyl glycinate hydrochloride under mild conditions. The developed method was applied to crude lignin depolymerization bio-oils, derived from reductive catalytic fractionation (RCF) mediated either by copper-doped porous metal oxide (Cu20 PMO) or Ru/C, allowing the selective production of 4-propanol-2-methoxyaniline (1Gb) and 4-propyl-2-methoxyaniline (2Gb), respectively, from pine lignocellulose. Finally, the application of 2Gb was further studied in the synthesis of carbazole 2Gc, a lignin-derived analogue of biologically active alkaloid murrayafoline A.

Scalable Diastereoselective Electrosynthesis of Spiro[benzofuran-2,2'-furan]-3-ones

Spirobenzofuran scaffolds, because of their three-dimensional structure, are incorporated into several valuable natural products and drug candidate molecules. Herein, with the assistance of electrosynthesis, we introduce a novel electrochemical approach for achieving spirobenzofurans in a user-friendly and operationally simple undivided cell setup under constant current. This metal-catalyst-free electrochemical procedure afforded spiro[benzofuran-2,2'-furan]-3-ones with high diastereoselectivity. Compatibility with gram-scale synthesis along with the convenient accessibility of reaction instruments and starting materials collectively raised the importance of this protocol compared to previous challenging methods. Furthermore, mechanistic cognizance of this reaction is obtained by the investigation of the cyclic voltammetry spectra of reactants.

Electrooxidative palladium- and enantioselective rhodium-catalyzed [3 + 2] spiroannulations

Despite indisputable progress in the development of electrochemical transformations, electrocatalytic annulations for the synthesis of biologically relevant three-dimensional spirocyclic compounds has as of yet not been accomplished. In sharp contrast, herein, we describe the palladaelectro-catalyzed C-H activation/[3 + 2] spiroannulation of alkynes by 1-aryl-2-naphthols. Likewise, a cationic rhodium(iii) catalyst was shown to enable electrooxidative [3 + 2] spiroannulations via formal C(sp3)-H activations. The versatile spiroannulations featured a broad substrate scope, employing electricity as a green oxidant in lieu of stoichiometric chemical oxidants under mild conditions. An array of spirocyclic enones and diverse spiropyrazolones, bearing all-carbon quaternary stereogenic centers were thereby accessed in a user-friendly undivided cell setup, with molecular hydrogen as the sole byproduct.