Electrolytic reductive coupling has been extended to intramolecular reactions which have been found capable of yielding a wide variety of cyclic compounds. A series of bisactivated olefins, ROOCCH= CH (CRz), CH= CHCOOR, gave high yields of ring compounds by p-to-p coupling when n was 1, 2, 3, and 4; the proposed mechanism of the reaction explained the fact that only acyclic products were formed when n was greater than 4. The reaction was ...
