Lovato, KaitlynGuo, LirongXu, Qing-LongLiu, FengtingYousufuddin, MuhammedEss, Daniel H.Kürti, LászlóGao, Hongyin2019-01-082019-01-082018Lovato, Kaitlyn, Guo, Lirong, Xu, Qing-Long, et al.. "Transition metal-free direct dehydrogenative arylation of activated C(sp3)–H bonds: synthetic ambit and DFT reactivity predictions." <i>Chemical Science,</i> 9, (2018) Royal Society of Chemistry: 7992-7999. https://doi.org/10.1039/c8sc02758g.https://hdl.handle.net/1911/104978A transition metal-free dehydrogenative method for the direct mono-arylation of a wide range of activated C(sp3)-H bonds has been developed. This operationally simple and environmentally friendly aerobic arylation uses tert-BuOK as the base and nitroarenes as electrophiles to prepare up to gram quantities of structurally diverse sets (>60 examples) of α-arylated esters, amides, nitriles, sulfones and triaryl methanes. DFT calculations provided a predictive model, which states that substrates containing a C(sp3)-H bond with a sufficiently low pK a value should readily undergo arylation. The DFT prediction was confirmed through experimental testing of nearly a dozen substrates containing activated C(sp3)-H bonds. This arylation method was also used in a one-pot protocol to synthesize over twenty compounds containing all-carbon quaternary centers.engThis Open Access Article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported LicenceJournal articlec8sc02758ghttps://doi.org/10.1039/c8sc02758g