Carbanion is one of the most classical intermediates in organic transformations. Traditionally, generating these reactive species requires stoichiometric amounts of organic bases or reactive metals, often involving Schlenk techniques and tedious procedures. To address these issues, a broad range of electrochemical protocols has been developed for carbanion generation via an electrochemical reduction pathway. Despite the tremendous development, the potential of electrochemically generated carbanions remains largely overlooked and underexplored. Herein, we reviewed recent progress in the field, and the impressive strategies generating carbanions from double bonds, carbon‐heteroatom bonds, and CH bonds are discussed. Furthermore, the challenges existing in the present reports and future directions were also covered. It is noteworthy that the review highlights chemistry from the last 5 years and is not intended to be exhaustive.
Xia et al. (Fri,) studied this question.