Memory of Chirality in Electron Transfer Mediated Benzylic Umpolung Reactions of Arene-Cr(CO)3 Complexes

As density functional calculations suggest, Cr(CO)3-complexed benzylic radicals (such as 2) exhibit a significant degree of configurational stablility. This was exploited in an efficient method for the electron transfer mediated transformations of readily available 1-arylalkanol–Cr(CO)3 derivatives 1 to afford alkylated products 3 in good yields and with a high degree of stereochemical retention.