Striving to exploit alkyl electrophiles: challenge and choice in transition metal-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions of sulfones

For cross-coupling reactions of alkyl electrophiles, alkyl halides, alkyl tosylates, alkyl acetates and alkyl sulfones exhibit high reaction efficiency when various transition metal catalysts and reaction partners are employed. As crystalline and readily available alkyl electrophiles, alkyl sulfones in radical cross-coupling reactions open a new avenue for modularly generating diverse alkyl compounds. It is believed that more transformations using sulfones as electrophiles will be developed in the near future.