Aniline Derivatives from Lignin under Mild Conditions Enabled by Electrochemistry.

The development of environmentally friendly methods for the valorization of important phenolic platform chemicals originating directly from lignin-first depolymerization into value-added N-chemicals, such as aniline derivatives, is of high industrial interest. In this work, we tackle this challenging transformation by the judicious combination of electrochemical conversion and chemical functionalization steps. In the first step, lignin-derived para-substituted guaiacols and syringols undergo an atom-efficient, room-temperature anodic oxidation using methanol both as solvent and reagent towards the formation of the corresponding cyclohexadienone derivatives, which are subsequently converted to synthetically challenging ortho-methoxy substituted anilines by reaction with ethyl glycinate hydrochloride under mild conditions.