Radical Aza-Heck Cyclization of Imidates via Energy Transfer, Electron Transfer, and Cobalt Catalysis

A radical aza-Heck cyclization has been developed to afford functionally rich products with four contiguous C-heteroatom bonds. This multi-catalytic strategy provides rapid syntheses of dense, medicinally relevant motifs by enabling the conversion of alcohol-derived imidates to heteroatom-rich fragments containing vinyl oxazolines/oxazoles, allyl amines, β-amino alcohols/halides, and combinations thereof. Mechanistic insights of this process show how three distinct photocatalytic cycles cooperate to enable: (1) imidate radical generation by energy transfer, (2) dehydrogenation by Co catalysis, and (3) catalyst turnover by electron transfer.