Electrochemical Aminoselenation and Oxyselenation of Styrenes with Hydrogen Evolution

The use of additive-free conditions is an ideal approach to prepare organoselenium reagents from readily available unsaturated substrates. Thus, we report the electro-induced aminoselenation and oxyselenation of styrenes without any acids or oxidants as additives. This transformation is compatible with various functional groups, which leads to vicinal difunctionalized organoselenium compounds. Our strategy improves the potential of this protocol for use in the pharmaceutical industry. Based upon the preliminary mechanism studies, we propose two possible pathways.