Electrochemical oxidative N-H/P-H cross-coupling with H evolution towards the synthesis of tertiary phosphines.

Tertiary phosphines(iii) find widespread use in many aspects of synthetic organic chemistry. Herein, we developed a facile and novel electrochemical oxidative N-H/P-H cross-coupling method, leading to a series of expected tertiary phosphines(iii) under mild conditions with excellent yields. It is worth noting that this electrochemical protocol features very good reaction selectivity, where only a 1 : 1 ratio of amine and phosphine was required in the reaction. Moreover, this electrochemical protocol proved to be practical and scalable. Mechanistic insights suggested that the P radical was involved in this reaction.