An Expeditious Route to Eight-Membered Heterocycles By Nickel-Catalyzed Cycloaddition: Low-Temperature C sp 2C sp 3 Bond Cleavage†

At the onset of 21st century, chemists have witnessed an immense growth in the field of C-H activation, which offers an elegant solution to a cleaner construction of a C-C bond by minimizing waste.[1] Alternatively, C-C bond activation provides another possible solution to the aforementioned problem. Although significant progress has been made in the area of C-H activation, C-C bond activation is still relatively dormant.[2] The reason can be attributed to the highly inert nature of C-C sigma bond in addition to a poor interaction of the orbitals of C-C sigma bond and transition metals.[2a]