Abstract

Despite a long history, electrosynthesis has never become a routine procedure in organic synthesis laboratories or for the manufacture of organic compounds within industry. One major reason is the nature of the literature. This review highlights the need for electrosyntheses to meet the demands of the user and for papers to make this clear. To be attractive to synthetic chemists, papers need to demonstrate a high conversion of reactant to product as well as the isolation of pure product on a scale of interest and in high yield. In addition, it is absolutely essential that papers include a detailed description of the procedure, especially the electrolysis cell (geometry, dimensions, component materials and sources, mass transfer regime etc.) and all the control parameters (solvent, concentration of reactants(s) and electrolyte, pH, cell current, temperature etc.) used for the electrolysis.