A Desaturative Approach for Aromatic Aldehyde Synthesis via Synergistic Enamine, Photoredox and Cobalt Triple Catalysis

Aromatic aldehydes are fundamental intermediates that are widely utilised for the synthesis of important materials across the broad spectrum of chemical industries. Accessing highly substituted derivatives can often be difficult as their functionalizations are generally performed via electrophilic aromatic substitution, SEAr. Here we provide an alternative and mechanistically distinct approach whereby aromatic aldehydes are assembled from saturated precursors via a desaturative process. This novel strategy harnesses the high-fidelity of Diels-Alder cycloadditions to quickly construct multi-substituted cyclohexenecarbaldehyde cores which undergo desaturation via the synergistic interplay of enamine, photoredox and cobalt triple catalysis.