Coupling photocatalytic water oxidation with reductive transformations of organic molecules

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 13; no. 1; p. 6186
• Main Authors: Tian, Xinzhe, Guo, Yinggang, An, Wankai, Ren, Yun-Lai, Qin, Yuchen, Niu, Caoyuan, Zheng, Xin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 19.10.2022; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/638/403/933; 639/638/77/890; Atmospheric chemistry; Bromides; Carbon nitride; Chemical reactions; Chemists; Clean energy; Coupling (molecular); Functional groups; Green chemistry; Humanities and Social Sciences; Light effects; multidisciplinary; Organic chemistry; Organic compounds; Oxidation; Photocatalysis; Photochemicals; Pollution control; Reagents; Reducing agents; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Sodium carbonate; Water splitting
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-33778-9

The utilization of readily available and non-toxic water by photocatalytic water splitting is highly attractive in green chemistry. Herein we report that light-induced oxidative half-reaction of water splitting is effectively coupled with reduction of organic compounds, which provides a light-induced avenue to use water as an electron donor to enable reductive transformations of organic substances. The present strategy allows various aryl bromides to undergo smoothly the reductive coupling with Pd/g-C 3 N 4 * as the photocatalyst, giving a pollutive reductant-free method for synthesizing biaryl skeletons. Moreover, the use of green visible-light energy endows this process with more advantages including mild conditions and good functional group tolerance. Although this method has some disadvantages such as a use of environmentally unfriendly 1,2-dioxane, an addition of Na 2 CO 3 and so on, it can guide chemists to use water as a reducing agent to develop clean procedures for various organic reactions. While reductive coupling strategies in organic synthesis are crucial, most require additional sacrificial or toxic reagents. Here, authors demonstrate water as mild reducing agent in the photochemical reduction of organic compounds paired with photocatalytic water oxidation.