Radical Hydrodeiodination of Aryl, Alkenyl, Alkynyl, and Alkyl Iodides with an Alcoholate as Organic Chain Reductant through Electron Catalysis

A simple and efficient method for radical hydro-deiodination is reported. The novel approach uses electron catalysis. In situ generated Na-alcoholates are introduced as radical chain reducing reagents and reactions work with O-2 as cheap initiator. Hydrodeiodination works on aryl, alkenyl, alkynyl iodides and a tert-alkyl iodide also gets reduced applying the method. Albeit less general, the method is also applicable to the reduction of aryl bromides. The novel reagent is successfully used to conduct typical reductive radical cyclization reactions and mechanistic studies are reported.