Current-Controlled Electrochemical Approach Toward Mono- and Trifluorinated Isoindolin-1-one Derivatives.

An electrochemical intramolecular 5-exo-dig aza-cyclization of 2-alkynylbenzamides and subsequent nucleophilic fluorination have been developed to afford the highly selective synthesis of mono- and trifluorinated isoindolin-1-one derivatives. This work demonstrates the unique capability of synthetic electrochemistry in controlling reaction selectivity through the applied electrolytic parameters. In addition, the obtained monofluorinated 3-methyleneisoindolin-1-one (19) displays interesting photophysical properties that are not observed in its nonfluorinated analog.