Manipulating alkoxy radicals for site- and enantioselective C–H oxidation

Abstract

Using C–H substrates as limiting reagents to achieve non-directed C–H activation with high selectivity has been a long-standing challenge in organic synthesis. Recently in Nature Catalysis, Liu et al. introduce a biomimetic catalytic system that employs Cu(II)-bound tert-butoxy radicals for site-selective C–H abstraction, enabling highly efficient asymmetric C(sp³)–H oxidation.