Difluoromethylation of heterocycles via a radical process

Abstract

Difluoromethylation is of prime importance due to its applicability in functionalizing diverse fluorine-containing heterocycles, which are the core moieties of various biologically and pharmacologically active ingredients. Due to their significant biological and synthetic value, the construction of difluoromethyl substituted scaffolds has been a highly intriguing research topic, and substantial progress has been made in the past decades. In this review, we aim to summarize the state-of-the-art advances in difluoromethylation of heterocycles via a radical process over the past few years (2018 to early 2022). For the selected examples, we focused on the design and catalytic mechanism as well as on the representative outcomes and applications.