Electrochemical Deuteration: A Sustainable Strategy for Isotope Incorporation in Organic Molecules

Electrochemical deuteration is emerging as a powerful and sustainable strategy for introducing deuterium into organic molecules, providing a green alternative to traditional isotope-labeling methods. Over the past two years, significant advances have been made in both metal-catalyzed and metal-free electrochemical systems that enable site-selective deuteration under mild conditions. These developments have expanded the substrate scope, new synthetic methods development, improved reaction efficiency, and reduced the need for steps and hazardous reagents. Furthermore, mechanistic insights derived from electroanalytical techniques have deepened our understanding of electron transfer processes in deuterium incorporation. This review highlights key breakthroughs reported since 2022, discusses underlying mechanistic principles, and outlines emerging trends in reaction design and scalability. Collectively, these innovations underscore the growing importance of electrochemical methods in achieving sustainable isotopic labeling for pharmaceutical chemistry applications.