Addition of carbon nucleophiles to CN triple bonds of nitriles is one of the most attractive transformations of nitriles. 1 However, the reported methods are limited to strong base promoted intramolecular cyclization reactions of dinitriles (Thorpe-Ziegler reaction) because of the low reactivity of nitriles. 2 Development of a catalytic method which proceeds under neutral conditions has been waiting to be explored in view of both synthetic and ...
