Visible-Light-Promoted N-H Insertion/Controllable Transformation of Diazoalkanes and 3-Aminomethylated Maleimides.

The utilization of photogenerated carbene species to perform N-H insertion reactions has attracted considerable attention in the past few years. In this Article, we disclose a visible-light-promoted N-H insertion of 3-aminomethylated maleimides with aryl diazoacetates under sole blue LED irradiation. Continuous flow reactor technology was exploited to improve the reaction efficiency. By simply varying the reaction conditions, the formed N-H insertion products could be selectively transferred to bioimportant octahydropyrrolo[3,4-]pyrroles and -selective trisubstituted olefins.