Reductions of carbon-carbon double and triple bonds are most commonly accomplished through catalytic hydrogenation:
However, diimide reduction offers the advantages that the handling of gaseous hydrogen is unnecessary and removal of catalysts and byproducts (one of which is gaseous dinitrogen) is straightforward. Hydrogenolysis side reactions do not occur during diimide reductions, and N–O and O–O bonds are not affected by the reaction conditions. On the other hand, diimide reductions often require long reaction times, and reductions of highly substituted or polarized double bonds are sluggish.
In addition, an excess of the reagent used to generate diimide (e.g. dipotassium azodicarboxylate) is required for hydrogenation because of the two competing processes of disproportionation (to  and ) and decomposition (to  and ) that the liberated diimide can also undergo. Unfortunately, this means that in the case of alkyne reduction, over-reduction to the alkane can occur resulting in diminished yields where the cis alkene is the desired product.