en.Wedoany.com Reported - German chemists at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research have recently published a breakthrough study in the journal Nature, successfully developing a two-step method for the alkylation of olefins. This method, employing thianthrenation technology, solves the long-standing synthetic challenge of direct C–H bond alkylation of olefins, providing a new tool for the fields of drug discovery, agrochemicals, and materials science.

Doctoral student Triptesh Kumar Roy explained: "Although the C–H bond dissociation energy of olefins is similar to that of arenes, olefins are more prone to addition reactions, which is why a general C–H alkylation protocol has been lacking. Our method allows access to substituted olefins from simple parent olefins, which is difficult to achieve with traditional methods."

The team led by Professor Tobias Ritter adopted a polar decarboxylation strategy, using stable carboxylic acids as alkyl sources, converting them into redox-active esters to generate persistent alkylzinc intermediates. Combined with alkenyl thianthrenium salts, this enables controlled regioselective and diastereoselective carbon–carbon bond formation.

Professor Ritter stated: "The polar decarboxylative cross-coupling strategy we designed differs from existing radical pathways. Given the abundance of starting materials, this provides synthetic chemists with a practical tool to test new molecular combinations." The method is applicable to a wide range of olefins, including internal, cyclic, and trisubstituted substrates.

The research team expects this catalytic strategy to be widely adopted in both academic and pharmaceutical settings, driving the development of new functional molecules.

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