Reductive Carboamination of Olefins with Aryldiazonium Salts

Significance

Although the use of diazonium salts in the addition reaction to olefins has been known for a long time, this process was limited to electron-deficient alkenes. The authors developed for the first time a procedure which allows the functionalization of non-activated terminal alkenes bearing functional groups. This is a very simple and elegant method, allowing the fast assembly of complex polyfunctional molecules starting from inexpensive substituted anilines. Obviously, this method will soon find a broad application in the synthesis of biologically active compounds.