Electrophilic cyanation has long relied on highly toxic cyanogen halides, which limits practical use. Here we present eCyanation, an electrochemical approach that uses inexpensive, bench-stable potassium thiocyanate as the cyanide source. Under mild anodic conditions, electrophilic cyanating species are generated from thiocyanate, enabling N- and S-cyanation without handling cyanide salts or isolating cyanogen halides. For oxidation-sensitive substrates, we also provide a complementary two-step variant: bromine-mediated activation of thiocyanate generates a reactive cyanating solution, which is then combined with the nucleophile after electrolysis. Together, these two operational modes offer a practical entry point to electrophilic cyanation chemistry from thiocyanate.
Hattori et al. (Fri,) studied this question.