Scaled-up sodium-free Birch reductions The so-called Birch reduction is frequently used by chemists despite its daunting conditions: Pyrophoric sodium is dissolved in pure liquified ammonia to achieve partial reduction of aromatics. Peters et al. surveyed and then optimized small-scale electrochemical alternatives to devise a safer protocol that can work on a larger scale with a broad range of functionally complex substrates. Science , this issue p. 838