Amines as a gateway to alkyl radicals: In recent years, photoredox catalysis driven by blue light has often been used to oxidize carbon centers adjacent to nitrogen. Constantin et al. now show that these aminoalkyl radicals can, in turn, conveniently strip iodine atoms from a variety of alkyl carbons. The new alkyl radicals that result readily undergo deuteration and couplings such as alkylation, allylation, and olefination. The upshot is that simple amines can replace more hazardous conventional reagents such as trialkyltin compounds in the homolytic activation and functionalization of halocarbons. Science , this issue p. 1021

The generation of aryl radicals from the corresponding halides by redox chemistry is generally considered a difficult task due to their highly negative reduction potentials. Here we demonstrate that α-aminoalkyl radicals can be used as both initiators and chain-carriers for the radical coupling of aryl halides with pyrrole derivatives, a transformation often employed to evaluate new highly reducing photocatalysts. This mode of reactivity obviates for the use of strong reducing species and was also competent in the formation of sp² C–P bonds. Mechanistic studies have delineated some of the key features operating that trigger aryl radical generation and also propagate the chain process.

The generation of carbon radicals by halogen-atom and group transfer reactions is generally achieved using tin and silicon reagents that maximize the interplay of enthalpic (thermodynamic) and polar (kinetic) effects. In this work, we demonstrate a distinct reactivity mode enabled by quantum mechanical tunneling that uses the cyclohexadiene derivative γ-terpinene as the abstractor under mild photochemical conditions. This protocol activates alkyl and aryl halides as well as several alcohol and thiol derivatives. Experimental and computational studies unveiled a noncanonical pathway whereby a cyclohexadienyl radical undergoes concerted aromatization and halogen-atom or group abstraction through the reactivity of an effective H atom. This activation mechanism is seemingly thermodynamically and kinetically unfavorable but is rendered feasible through quantum tunneling.