At the outset of this investigation, a model reaction of 2-aminostyrene
1a and sodium azide
2a was performed in an undivided cell. Initially,
n-Bu
4NI was employed as the electrolyte and CH
3CN as the solvent with a constant current of 10 mA. To our delight, the desired product
3a was obtained in 35% yield (
Table 1, entry 1). Afterwards, other electrolytes, such as NH
4I,
n-Bu
4NBr,
n-BuNClO
4,
n-BuNBF
4, NH
4PF
6 and Me
4NI, were examined in the reaction (entries 2−7). We found only iodine salts could promote this transformation, especially Me
4NI performed well in this reaction, giving the product
3a in 83% yield. The screening of the different kinds of solvent showed that CH
3CN was the best solvent (entries 8−13). Moreover, the addition of water to this reaction could increase the yield of
3a, perhaps due to the improvement of the solubility of NaN
3 in the presence of water (entry 14). Subsequently, the ratio of CH
3CN and H
2O was investigated. Changing the ratio of CH
3CN/H
2O to 5:1 could give the best result, that is,
3a can be obtained in 95% (entries 14–16). Increasing the reaction temperature did not increase the yield of this transformation (entries 17 and 18). Finally, other types of electrodes were examined and the results indicated that the C|C electrodes was the best electrode in this reaction (entries 19−21). No product was observed without electricity, suggesting that the reaction driving force should be the electric energy.