Exogenous-oxidant- and catalyst-free electrochemical deoxygenative C2 sulfonylation of quinoline N-oxides

An exogenous-oxidant- and catalyst-free electrochemical deoxygenative C2 sulfonylation reaction has been achieved. By employing quinoline N-oxides as the starting materials, the electrochemical C-H sulfonylation of electron-deficient quinolines was indirectly achieved at room temperature and a variety of sulfonylated quinoline derivatives were synthesized in modest to high yield with excellent regioselectivity. Notably, this protocol is the first example for synthesizing sulfonylated electron-deficient heteroarenes/arenes through electrochemistry.