Manganese-Catalyzed Electrochemical Tandem Azidation-Coarctate Reaction: Easy Access to 2-Azo-benzonitriles

Org Lett. 2021 Mar 5;23(5):1742-1747. doi: 10.1021/acs.orglett.1c00169. Epub 2021 Feb 24.

Abstract

A one-pot cascade transformation consisting of an electrochemically driven azidation of 2H-indazole followed by coarctate fragmentation is developed to synthesize the 2-azo-benzonitrile motif. This manganese-catalyzed transformation is external-chemical-oxidant-free and operates at ambient temperature under air. This methodology exhibits good functional group tolerance, affording a broad range of substrate scopes of up to 89% isolated yield. Diverse derivatization of the 2-azo-benzonitrile product resulted in other valuable scaffolds.