Direct electrochemical propylene epoxidation driven by water-activation intermediates

Epoxides are highly important for modern manufacturing, but the existing synthetic routes require hazardous conditions and reagents. Recently in Science, Manthiram and co-workers reported an efficient direct epoxidation with water-activation-derived metal-bound peroxo intermediates as reactive species under mild conditions. This method inspires the academic community to focus on various oxygenation reactions directly via electrochemical oxygen-atom transfer from water.