General C(sp2)–C(sp3) Cross-Electrophile Coupling Reactions Enabled by Overcharge Protection of Homogeneous Electrocatalysts

Cross-electrophile coupling (XEC) of alkyl and aryl halides promoted by electrochemistry represents an attractive alternative to conventional methods that require stoichiometric quantities of high-energy reductants. Most importantly, electroreduction can readily exceed the reducing potentials of chemical reductants to activate catalysts with improved reactivities and selectivities over conventional systems. This work details the mechanistically-driven development of an electrochemical methodology for XEC that utilizes redox-active shuttles developed by the energy-storage community to protect reactive coupling catalysts from overreduction. The resulting electrocatalytic system is practical, scalable, and broadly applicable to the reductive coupling of a wide range of aryl, heteroaryl, or vinyl bromides with primary or secondary alkyl bromides. The impact of overcharge protection as a strategy for electrosynthetic methodologies is underscored by the dramatic differences in yields from coupling reactions with added redox shuttles (generally >80%) and those without (generally <20%). In addition to excellent yields for a wide range of substrates, reactions protected from overreduction can be performed at high currents and on multigram scales.