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Direct activation of gaseous hydrocarbons remains a major challenge for the chemistry community. Because of the intrinsic inertness of these compounds, harsh reaction conditions are typically required to enable C(sp3)-H bond cleavage, barring potential applications in synthetic organic chemistry. Here, we report a general and mild strategy to activate C(sp3)-H bonds in methane, ethane, propane, and isobutane through hydrogen atom transfer using inexpensive decatungstate as photocatalyst at room temperature. The corresponding carbon-centered radicals can be effectively trapped by a variety of Michael acceptors, leading to the corresponding hydroalkylated adducts in good isolated yields and high selectivity (38 examples).
Laudadio et al. (Thu,) studied this question.