The activation of C-H bonds has revolutionized modern synthetic chemistry. However, no general strategy for enantiospecific C-H activation has been developed to date. We herein report an enantiospecific C-H activation reaction followed by deuterium incorporation at stereogenic centers. Mechanistic studies suggest that the selectivity for the α-position of the directing heteroatom results from a four-membered dimetallacycle as the key intermediate. This work paves the way to novel molecular chemistry on nanoparticles.
Keywords: CH activation; ab initio calculations; deuterium; isotopic labeling; nanoparticles.
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