ABSTRACT
The vast majority of organic molecules and materials is derived from nonrenewable feedstocks such as crude oil and natural gas.1,2 From a chemist’s point of view, making these feedstocks usable involves breaking and making new C-C bonds and transforming C-H bonds into targeted functional groups. Most traditional pathways have achieved this objective by initial C-H bond functionalizations such as radical functionalizations3-5 or partial aerobic oxidations,6 which are then followed by a modiable sequence of steps to introduce desired functional groups or C-C bonds constructing the desired frameworks. This approach, known as the functional group interconversion strategy,7,8 is so fundamentally important to the way organic chemists think about synthesis, that the introductory chapters of organic chemistry textbooks and lectures focus on exactly this sequence: Radical C-H functionalizations (halogenations) are followed by substitution and elimination reactions, carboxyl and carbonyl chemistry, as well as oxidations and reductions.
