The syntheses of four new tunable homogeneous organic reductants based on a tetraaminoethylene scaffold are reported. The new reductants have enhanced air-stability compared to current homogeneous reductants for metal mediated reductive transformations, such as cross-electrophile coupling (XEC), and are solids at room temperature. In particular, the weakest reductant is indefinitely stable in air and has a reduction potential of −0.85 V versus ferrocene, which is significantly milder than conventional reductants used in XEC. All of the new reductants are able to facilitate C(sp(2))–C(sp(3)) Ni-catalyzed XEC reactions and are compatible with complex substrates that are relevant to medicinal chemistry. The reductants span a range of nearly 0.5 V in reduction potential, which allows for control over the rate of electron transfer events in XEC. Specifically, we report a new strategy for controlled alkyl radical generation in Ni-catalyzed C(sp(2))–C(sp(3)) XEC. The key to our approach is to tune the rate of alkyl radical generation from Katritzky salts, which liberate alkyl radicals upon single electron reduction, by varying the redox potentials of the reductant and Katritzky salt utilized in catalysis. Using our method, we perform XEC reactions between benzylic Katritzky salts and aryl halides. The method tolerates a variety of functional groups, some of which are particularly challenging for most XEC transformations. Overall, we expect that our new reductants will both replace conventional homogeneous reductants in current reductive transformations due to their stability and relatively facile synthesis, and lead to the development of novel synthetic methods due to their tunability.
