In a two-chamber reactor, it is very easy to couple hydrogen halogens with olefins in a fast and efficient process without solvents, without purification steps and with quantitative yields, a team from Leuven reports in the European Journal of Organic Chemistry.

Halogens play an essential role in many medicines and organic chemical reactions. Hydrohalogenation (HX) is a well-known way to convert olefins into haloalkanes. However, hydrogen halogens such as HCl, HBr and HI are expensive in solution and quite toxic in gaseous form. A KU Leuven team led by Wim De Borggraeve has therefore developed a safe and clean protocol without solvents or purification steps, in which the hydrogen can also be replaced by deuterium. The latter is useful for various applications, such as in organic electronic materials, but also as an internal standard for drug discovery.