Metal

Catalysis

Electrophile

Functional group

Alkyl

Migratory insertion

Polymer

Combinatorial chemistry

Organic chemistry

Beta-Hydride elimination

Reductive elimination

Catalytic cycle

Hydride

Chemistry

Nature Communications

The use of alkyl chlorides in Pd-catalyzed Mizoroki–Heck coupling reactions remains an unsolved problem despite their significant potential for synthetic utility and applicability. The combination of the high thermodynamic barrier of alkyl chloride activation and kinetic propensity of alkylpalladium complexes to undergo undesired β-hydride elimination provides significant challenges. Herein, a variety of alkyl chlorides, even tertiary chlorides, are shown to efficiently participate in Mizoroki–Heck cross-coupling reactions with excellent functional group compatibility under mild reaction conditions via photoinduced Pd catalysis. The reaction is applied to late-stage functionalizations of diverse biologically significant scaffolds and iterative double Mizoroki–Heck annulations, affording high molecular complexity in a single step. Notably, studies on the kinetic isotope effects in combination with density functional theory (DFT)-computations completely exclude the involvement of a previously proposed β-hydride elimination in the catalytic cycle, revealing that the chlorine atom transfer process is the key catalytic turnover step. This distinctive single-electron transfer mediated reaction pathway resolves a longstanding challenge in traditional two-electron based Pd-catalyzed Mizoroki–Heck cross-coupling with alkyl electrophiles, wherein the β-hydride elimination is involved in the formation of both the desired product and undesired by-products.

Pd-catalyzed formal Mizoroki–Heck coupling of unactivated alkyl chlorides