Combination of Tetrabutylammonium Iodide (TBAI) with tert-Butyl Hydroperoxide (TBHP): An Efficient Transition-Metal-Free System to Construct Various Chemical Bonds.

In this account, we describe our recent progress on transition-metal-free-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions using tetrabutylammonium iodide (TBAI) as the catalyst and tert-butyl hydroperoxide (TBHP) as the oxidant. A rich variety of important organic compounds including α-acyloxy ethers, tert-butyl peresters, allylic esters, amides, α-amino nitriles, fully substituted pyrazoles, N-sulfonyl formamidines, α-amino acid esters, cyanomethyl esters, N-nitrosamines, and 3-acyloxy-2,3-dihydrobenzofurans have been successfully achieved in high chemoselectivity. Mechanistic studies suggested that TBAI could decompose TBHP to BuO and BuOO or be oxdized to (hypo)iodite by TBHP.