| Abstract: | An urgent search is being made for generic reagents that promote free radical synthetic transformations as means of banishing the toxic threat of organotin hydrides. Although second-generation tin reagents are beguiling, organosilanes and a range of thiocarbonyl compounds are more intrinsically benign. Metal-free radical chain sequences based around cyclohexadiene derivatives are being developed (see reaction scheme), and tetrathiafulvalenes mimic metals and allow a crossover from homolytic to ionic chemistry. Z=alkene. |
