Electrochemical Reduction of Diarylketones and Aryl Alkenes

The reduction of ketones or alkenes is an attractive and challenging task in organic chemistry and has widespread applications in the production of fine chemicals, fragrances, pharmaceuticals, vitamins, and functional materials. Classical reduction methods usually require the use of potentially dangerous hydrogen and the reaction under high temperature and pressure conditions, so environmentally friendly, economical, simple, and safe reduction methods are urgently needed. This paper innovatively reports a method for the electrochemical reduction of diarylketones or aryl alkenes in a mixed solvent system of CH3CN/THF. The reaction proceeds smoothly, and the corresponding products are obtained in high yields. The mechanistic study shows that the reaction is a free radical reaction, and reveals the necessity of CH3CN solvent, which plays the three roles of solvent, proton donors, and reactant at the same time. Furthermore, the high yield of the gram-scale experiment successfully confirmed the potential industrial application of this electrochemical method.