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Electrocatalysis

Understanding organic electrosynthesis

A deeper understanding of reaction mechanisms should lead to improvements in the selectivity of organic electrosynthesis methods. This approach has now been used to explain the role of magnesium diacetate in the Ag-electrocatalysed reductive coupling of sp3 organic chlorides with aldehydes or ketones with increased selectivity for the desired alcohol product.

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Fig. 1: Electrochemical reductive C(sp3) – C(sp3) coupling of organic chlorides with aldehydes/ketones.

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Correspondence to Angel Cuesta.

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Cuesta, A. Understanding organic electrosynthesis. Nat Catal 7, 115–116 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-023-01101-4

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