Manganese-Catalyzed Electrochemical Tandem Azidation-Coarctate Reaction: Easy Access to 2-Azo-benzonitriles.

A one-pot cascade transformation consisting of an electrochemically driven azidation of 2H-indazole followed by coarctate fragmentation is developed to synthesize the 2-azo-benzonitrile motif. This manganese-catalyzed transformation is external-chemical-oxidant-free and operates at ambient temperature under air. This methodology exhibits good functional group tolerance, affording a broad range of substrate scopes of up to 89% isolated yield. Diverse derivatization of the 2-azo-benzonitrile product resulted in other valuable scaffolds.