Anodic Oxidation as an Enabling Tool for the Synthesis of Natural Products
Electrochemistry provides a valuable toolbox for organic synthesis and offers an appealing, environmentally benign alternative to the use of stoichiometric quantities of chemical oxidants or reductants. Its potential to control current efficiency along with providing alternative reaction conditions in a classical sense makes electrochemistry a suitable method for large-scale industrial transformations as well as for laboratory applications in the synthesis of complex molecular architectures. Even though research in this field has intensified over the recent decades, many synthetic chemists still hesitate to add electroorganic reactions to their standard repertoire, and hence, the full poten…
Synthesis of Morphinans through Anodic Aryl‐Aryl Coupling
The morphinans are an important class of structurally fascinating and physiologically important natural products as exemplified by the famous opium alkaloids of the morphine family. Although this class of secondary metabolites from the juice of the opium poppy capsule was already used for medicinal purposes thousands of years ago, chemical modifications are still being applied to the core structure today in order to achieve the most specific effect on the various receptor subtypes possible with the fewest possible side effects. The unusual architecture of the morphinan core has also proven to be a highly challenging target for total synthesis. This review highlights electrosynthetic approac…