Date

Tuesday 13 Oct 2026

Time

15:15 - 15:45

Location

BW031

Supervisor

Lies Bouwman

2nd reviewer

Jeroen Codee

Jury

Stefan van der Vorm

Aziridines are important functional groups, relevant in the synthesis of for example potent inhibitors. Whilst traditional strategies for the synthesis of aziridines often entail multiple steps, various synthetic strategies for the direct aziridination of olefins have been developed over the recent years. Nonetheless, the majority of these strategies require an excess of substrate or have competing side-reactions. In this research, we demonstrate the direct aziridination of alkenes by the use of phosphoryl azides as a nitrene source, combined with a catalytic amount of photocatalyst. We show how the alkoxy groups of the phosphoryl azide can be matched with the excited state oxidation potential of the photocatalyst, based on the electron-donating properties of the alkoxy group. Optimization and mechanistic studies indicate that the reaction proceeds through a nitrene radical anion pathway. The optimized reaction conditions were successfully applied to several alkene substrates, containing various functional groups, utilizing the alkene substrate as the limiting reagent.