Hydroacylation of alpha,beta-unsaturated esters via aerobic C-H activation

The development of methods for carbon-carbon bond formation under benign conditions is an ongoing challenge for the synthetic chemist. In recent years there has been considerable interest in using selective C-H activation as a direct route for generating reactive intermediates. In this article, we describe the use of aldehyde auto-oxidation as a simple, clean and effective method for C-H activation, resulting in the generation of an acyl radical. This acyl radical can be used for carbon-carbon bond formation and herein we describe the application of this method for the hydroacylation of alpha,beta-unsaturated esters without the requirement of additional catalysts or reagents. This methodology generates unsymmetrical ketones, which have been shown to have broad use in organic synthesis.