With the popularity of electroorganic synthesis increasing by the day, the synthetic chemistry community has been adopting and impressively exploiting electrochemical methods with increasing regularity. This work is contributing to a rich history of similar efforts that have provided a framework for how to think about electrochemical reactions and how to use those reactions to accomplish new synthetic transformations that might be difficult or impossible to achieve in other ways. Interestingly, the relationship between organic synthesis and electrochemistry can also be viewed in the opposite direction. Many of the new synthetic methods being developed can facilitate exciting opportunities to expand the scope of electrochemical experiments. For example, new synthetic methods that allow for the generation or recycling of chemical reagents can be employed to locate chemical reactions at specific sites on a microelectrode array having thousands of electrodes per square centimeter. The reactions allow on to construct complex, addressable molecular surfaces on the arrays, an capability that sets the stage for using the microelectrode arrays as analytical devices for rapidly screening the binding behavior of small molecule libraries with biological targets. The chemistry available offers a previously unknown level of quality control over the molecular library, and it enables the binding events to be monitored in "real-time" as they happen thus providing more accurate, quantitative information about the binding event. Not surprisingly, the exploration of these new electrochemical tools is now beginning to “give back” to the synthetic arena. A number of preparative scale synthetic applications have now arisen based on the concept of site-selective reagent generation. Chief among these is a recent discovery that chemical reagents can be confined to a specific location in a preparative reaction; a development that offers a new strategy for controlling the selectivity of a variety of chemical reactions. In the talk to be given, the interplay between organic synthesis and electrochemistry will be highlighted with an emphasis on how key concepts in physical organic chemistry are used to guide the development of new advances in both areas.

Award Address (Arthur C. Cope Late Career Scholars Award sponsored by the Arthur C. Cope Fund). Exploring the synergistic relationship between organic synthesis and electrochemistry

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.