N-Heterocyclic Carbene/Magnesium Co-catalyzed Radical Relay Assembly of Aliphatic Keto-nitriles

An N-heterocyclic carbene and magnesium co-catalyzed three-component alkylacylation of alkenes with cycloketone oxime esters and aldehydes was presented. This method displayed good scope generality, providing a transition metal and photo-redox free pathway to access various multi-functionalized aliphatic keto-nitrile structures under mild reaction conditions. Moreover, this strategy is supposed to follow a radical relay mechanism via a single electron transfer (SET) event of Mg/oxime ester/Breslow intermediate ternary electron donating acceptor (EDA) complex.