Rewriting the narratives surrounding radical transformations
Don’t let tired clichés get in the way of selective and sustainable chemistry
It seems impossible to talk about radicals without suggesting they should be tamed – and Chemistry World is no exception (in fact, we’re a routine offender). It’s a cliche as old as the hills, rooted in the notion that radicals are wild and uncontrollable. But it’s starting to look rather out of date. The truth is, chemists are well beyond taming many radicals; they’re putting them to work doing useful transformations in a mild, chemoselective and orthogonal manner.