Clever carbene chemistry offers unified way to make cyclopropanes

Structures

Source: © 2025 Khue N M. Nguyen et al/Springer Nature Limited 2025

Radical route cuts out explosive reagents

A new synthetic strategy can catalytically access all carbene polarities with one mechanism. This mild and tuneable method can reduce the synthetic complexity of forming certain cyclopropanes and offers opportunities for click-like reactions in chemical biology.