Construction of N-Heterocycles via Electrochemically Generated Nitrogen Radicals and Nitrilium Ions

Nitrogen-containing heterocycles widely exist in natural products, medicinal compounds, and functional materials. The recent renaissance of organic synthetic electrochemistry provides many novel approaches to N-heterocycles. During the last several years, our group has been devoted to developing green and sustainable electrochemical methodologies to synthesize diverse N-heterocyclic scaffolds that are otherwise difficult or impossible to achieve. The mechanistic investigations allow us to take the advantage of electrochemical proton-coupled electron-transfer (PCET) strategy and electrochemically in-situ-generated Ritter-type intermediates for rapid access toward a wide range of value-added N-heterocycles, including benzoxathiazine dioxides, sultam-fused pyridinones, isoindolinones, tetrazoles, and others.