ALT The site-specific oxidation of strong C(sp3)-H bonds is of uncontested utility in organic synthesis. From simplifying access to metabolites and late-stage diversification of lead compounds to truncating retrosynthetic plans, there is a growing need for new reagents and methods for achieving such a transformation in both academic and industrial circles. One main drawback of current chemical reagents is the lack of diversity with regards to structure and reactivity that prevent a combinatorial approach for rapid screening to be employed. In that regard, directed evolution still holds the greatest promise for achieving complex C–H oxidations in a variety of complex settings. Herein we present a rationally designed platform that provides a step towards this challenge using N-ammonium ylides as electrochemically driven oxidants for site-specific, chemoselective C(sp3)–H oxidation. By taking a first-principles approach guided by computation, these new mediators were identified.

ALT A tunable, modular platform for site-specific C(sp3)–H oxidation exhibiting broad substrate scope that in many cases is inaccessible to other chemical oxidants, has 5 been developed using an electrochemically driven, N-ammonium ylide scaffold.