Iodide Photoredox and Bond Formation Chemistry

Outcompeting Thermodynamics: Ion-Pairing and Coulombic Interactions to Trigger Perfluoroacetate Intra-Ionic Photooxidation for Perfluoroalkylation Reactions

Trifluoromethylation is a key transformation in drug and agrochemical synthesis, yet current reagents often suffer from high cost, low atom economy, and low scalability. Trifluoroacetate derivatives represent ideal reagents as they are highly abundant and cheap, but their very positive one electron oxidation potential (∼2.3 V vs NHE) often hampers their widespread use in photoredox catalysis. Indeed, at these potentials, selectively oxidizing trifluoroacetate over reaction solvent or partner substrates becomes challenging. Herein, we present a novel approach that circumvents these limitations through the use of a pentacationic Ir(III) photosensitizer that forms a strong 1:1 ion-pair with trifluoroacetate in acetonitrile (Keq = 6 × 104 M-1). This ion-pair formation enables rapid and efficient photooxidation of trifluoroacetate in ∼90 ps without significant solvent or partner substrate oxidation, as indicated by femtosecond and nanosecond UV-visible transient absorption spectroscopy. The CF3• radicals so generated are shown to trifluoromethylate a range of partner substrates, including aromatic compounds, heterocycles, natural products and pharmaceutically relevant products, in moderate yields (20-60%). Control experiments reveal that ion-pairing is crucial for the successful generation of CF3• as photosensitizers that oxidize trifluoroacetate without forming ion pairs were ineffective for trifluoromethylation. This probably originates from the more thermodynamically accessible substrate oxidation outcompeting diffusional trifluoroacetate oxidation. The reaction was further exemplified to allow functionalization with a variety of perfluoroalkyl groups of different chain lengths. The approach reported herein could also be used for the removal and/or use of perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often called "forever chemicals", that have recently raised environmental and health concern.

Defluorinative C-O Coupling between Trifluoromethylarenes and Alcohols via Copper Photoredox Catalysis

Fluorine-containing compounds have shown unparalleled impacts in the realm of functional molecules, and the ability to prepare novel structures has been crucial in unlocking new properties for applications in pharmaceutical and materials science. Herein, we report a copper-catalyzed, photoinduced defluorinative C-O coupling between trifluoromethylarenes and alcohols. This method allows for direct access to a wide selection of difluorobenzylether (ArCF2OR) molecules, including a compound displaying liquid crystal behavior. Through slight modification of the protocol, we were able to generate difluorobenzyliodide (ArCF2I) products, another class of synthetically useful fluorine-bearing molecules. Mechanistic investigations first suggested that ArCF2I can serve as a reservoir to steadily supply the key ArCF2⋅ radical species. Furthermore, experimental evidence supported a mechanism consisting of two collaborative cycles: C-F activation operated by a homoleptic Cu(I) coordinated by two bisphosphine ligands as the photocatalyst and C-O coupling promoted by a Cu(I) ligated by a single bisphosphine ligand. The critical roles of the two salt additives, lithium iodide and zinc acetate, in orchestrating the two cycles were also elucidated. This dual-role copper catalyst demonstrates the power of base metal photoredox catalysis in achieving both substrate activation and chemical bond formation via a single catalytic system.

Factors that Impact Photochemical Cage Escape Yields

The utilization of visible light to mediate chemical reactions in fluid solutions has applications that range from solar fuel production to medicine and organic synthesis. These reactions are typically initiated by electron transfer between a photoexcited dye molecule (a photosensitizer) and a redox-active quencher to yield radical pairs that are intimately associated within a solvent cage. Many of these radicals undergo rapid thermodynamically favored "geminate" recombination and do not diffuse out of the solvent cage that surrounds them. Those that do escape the cage are useful reagents that may undergo subsequent reactions important to the above-mentioned applications. The cage escape process and the factors that determine the yields remain poorly understood despite decades of research motivated by their practical and fundamental importance. Herein, state-of-the-art research on light-induced electron transfer and cage escape that has appeared since the seminal 1972 review by J. P. Lorand entitled "The Cage Effect" is reviewed. This review also provides some background for those new to the field and discusses the cage escape process of both homolytic bond photodissociation and bimolecular light induced electron transfer reactions. The review concludes with some key goals and directions for future research that promise to elevate this very vibrant field to even greater heights.

Investigation of the Excited-State Electron Transfer and Cage Escape Yields Between Halides and a Fe(III) Photosensitizer

Excited-state quenching and reduction of [Fe(phtmeimb)2]+, where phtmeimb is phenyl[tris(3-methyl-imidazolin-2-ylidene)]borate, with iodide, bromide, and chloride were studied in dichloromethane, acetonitrile, and acetonitrile/water 1:1 mixture by means of steady-state and time-resolved spectroscopic techniques. Quenching rate constants were almost diffusion-limited in dichloromethane and acetonitrile and followed the expected periodic trend, i.e., I- > Br- > Cl-. Confirmation of excited-state reductive electron transfer was only unambiguously obtained when iodide was used as a quencher. The cage escape yields, i.e., the separation of the geminate radical pair formed upon bimolecular excited-state electron transfer, were determined. These yields were larger in dichloromethane (0.079) than in acetonitrile (0.017), and no photoproduct could be observed in acetonitrile/water 1:1. This study further emphasizes that solvents with low dielectric constant are more suited for productive excited-state electron transfer using Fe(III) photosensitizers with 2LMCT excited state.

Coulomb interactions for mediator-enhanced sensitized triplet-triplet annihilation upconversion in solution

Sensitized triplet-triplet annihilation upconversion offers an attractive possibility to replace a high-energy photon by two photons with lower energy through the combination of a light-harvesting triplet sensitizer and an annihilator for the formation of a fluorescent singlet state. Typically, high annihilator concentrations are required to achieve an efficient initial energy transfer and as a direct consequence the most highly energetic emission is often not detectable due to intrinsic reabsorption by the annihilator itself. Herein, we demonstrate that the addition of a charge-adapted mediator drastically improves the energy transfer efficiency at low annihilator concentrations via an energy transfer cascade. Inspired by molecular dyads and recent developments in nanocrystal-sensitized upconversion, our system exploits a concept to minimize intrinsic filter effects, while boosting the upconversion quantum yield in solution. A sensitizer-annihilator combination consisting of a ruthenium-based complex and 9,10-diphenylanthracene (DPA) is explored as model system and a sulfonated pyrene serves as mediator. The impact of opposite charges between sensitizer and mediator - to induce coulombic attraction and subsequently result in accelerated energy transfer rate constants - is analyzed in detail by different spectroscopic methods. Ion pairing and the resulting static energy transfer in both directions is a minor process, resulting in an improved overall performance. Finally, the more intense upconverted emission in the presence of the mediator is used to drive two catalytic photoreactions in a two-chamber setup, illustrating the advantages of our approach, in particular for photoreactions requiring oxygen that would interfere with the upconversion system.

Nanosecond Intra-Ionic Chloride Photo-Oxidation

Transition-metal photocatalysts capable of oxidizing chloride are rare yet serve as an attractive means to controllably generate chlorine atoms, which have continued to garner the interest of researchers for notable applications in photoredox catalysis and solar energy storage. Herein, a new series of four Ir-photocatalysts with different dicationic chloride-sequestering ligands were synthesized and characterized to probe the relationship between chloride binding affinities, ion pair solution structures, and rate constants for chloride photo-oxidation in acetonitrile at room temperature. The substituents on the quaternary amines of dicationic bipyridine ligands had negligible effects on the photocatalyst excited-state reduction potential, yet dramatically influenced the affinity for chloride binding, indicating that synthetic design can be utilized to independently tune these important properties. An inverse correlation was observed between the equilibrium constant for chloride ion pairing and the rate constant for intra-ionic chloride oxidation. Exceptions to this trend suggest structural differences in the ion-paired solution structures, which were probed by 1H NMR binding experiments. This study provides new insights into light-induced oxidation of ion-paired substrates, a burgeoning approach that offers to circumvent diffusional constraints of photocatalysts with short excited-state lifetimes. Ground-state association of chloride with these photocatalysts enables intra-ionic chloride oxidation on a rapid nanosecond timescale.

Shedding Light on the Oxidizing Properties of Spin-Flip Excited States in a CrIII Polypyridine Complex and Their Use in Photoredox Catalysis

The photoredox activity of well-known Ru^II complexes stems from metal-to-ligand charge transfer (MLCT) excited states, in which a ligand-based electron can initiate chemical reductions and a metal-centered hole can trigger oxidations. Cr^III polypyridines show similar photoredox properties, although they have fundamentally different electronic structures. Their photoactive excited state is of spin-flip nature, differing from the electronic ground state merely by a change of one electron spin, but with otherwise identical d-orbital occupancy. We find that the driving-force dependence for photoinduced electron transfer from 10 different donors to a spin-flip excited state of a Cr^III complex is very similar to that for a Ru^II polypyridine, and thereby validate the concept of estimating the redox potential of d³ spin-flip excited states in analogous manner as for the MLCT states of d⁶ compounds. Building on this insight, we use our Cr^III complex for photocatalytic reactions not previously explored with this compound class, including the aerobic bromination of methoxyaryls, oxygenation of 1,1,2,2-tetraphenylethylene, aerobic hydroxylation of arylboronic acids, and the vinylation of N-phenyl pyrrolidine. This work contributes to understanding the fundamental photochemical properties of first-row transition-metal complexes in comparison to well-explored precious-metal-based photocatalysts.

Photocatalyst-Mediator Interface Modification by Surface-Metal Cations of a Dye-Sensitized H2 Evolution Photocatalyst

To develop highly active H₂ evolving dye-sensitized photocatalysts (DSPs) applicable for Z-scheme water splitting, we synthesized a series of Ru(II)-dye-double-layered DSPs, X'-RuCP⁶-Zr-RuP⁶@Pt-TiO₂ (X'-DSP) with different surface-bound metal cations (X' = Fe²⁺, Y³⁺, Zr⁴⁺, Hf⁴⁺, and Bi³⁺). In 0.5 M KI aqueous solution, the photocatalytic H₂ evolution activity under blue light irradiation (λ = 460 ± 15 nm) increased in the following order: nonmetal-modified DSP, H⁺-DSP (turn over number for 6 h irradiation = 35.2) < Fe²⁺-DSP (54.9) ≈ Bi³⁺-DSP (55.2) < Hf⁴⁺-DSP (65.5) ≈ Zr⁴⁺-DSP (68.3) ≈ Y³⁺-DSP (71.5), suggesting that the redox-inactive and highly charged metal cations tend to improve the electron donation from the iodide electron mediator. On the other hand, DSPs having heavy metal cations, Hf⁴⁺-DSP (18.4) and Bi³⁺-DSP (16.6), exhibited better activity under green light irradiation (λ = 530 ± 15 nm) than Zr⁴⁺-DSP (15.7) and H⁺-DSP (7.80), implying the contribution of a heavy atom effect of the surface-bound metal cation to partially allow the spin-forbidden metal-to-ligand charge-transfer excitation.

Cobalt(III) Carbene Complex with an Electronic Excited-State Structure Similar to Cyclometalated Iridium(III) Compounds

Many organometallic iridium(III) complexes have photoactive excited states with mixed metal-to-ligand and intraligand charge transfer (MLCT/ILCT) character, which form the basis for numerous applications in photophysics and photochemistry. Cobalt(III) complexes with analogous MLCT excited-state properties seem to be unknown yet, despite the fact that iridium(III) and cobalt(III) can adopt identical low-spin d⁶ valence electron configurations due to their close chemical relationship. Using a rigid tridentate chelate ligand (L^CNC), in which a central amido π-donor is flanked by two σ-donating N-heterocyclic carbene subunits, we obtained a robust homoleptic complex [Co(L^CNC)₂](PF₆), featuring a photoactive excited state with substantial MLCT character. Compared to the vast majority of isoelectronic iron(II) complexes, the MLCT state of [Co(L^CNC)₂](PF₆) is long-lived because it does not deactivate as efficiently into lower-lying metal-centered excited states; furthermore, it engages directly in photoinduced electron transfer reactions. The comparison with [Fe(L^CNC)₂](PF₆), as well as structural, electrochemical, and UV–vis transient absorption studies, provides insight into new ligand design principles for first-row transition-metal complexes with photophysical and photochemical properties reminiscent of those known from the platinum group metals.

Resolving Halide Ion Stabilization through Kinetically Competitive Electron Transfers

Stabilization of ions and radicals often determines reaction kinetics and thermodynamics, but experimental determination of the stabilization magnitude remains difficult, especially when the species is short-lived. Herein, a competitive kinetic approach to quantify the stabilization of a halide ion toward oxidation imparted by specific stabilizing groups relative to a solvated halide ion is reported. This approach provides the increase in the formal reduction potential, ΔE°'(Χ^•/-), where X = Br and I, that results from the noncovalent interaction with stabilizing groups. The [Ir(dF-(CF₃)-ppy)₂(tmam)]³⁺ photocatalyst features a dicationic ligand tmam [4,4'-bis[(trimethylamino)methyl]-2,2'-bipyridine]²⁺ that is shown by ¹H NMR spectroscopy to associate a single halide ion, K _eq = 7 × 10⁴ M^-1 (Br^-) and K _eq = 1 × 10⁴ M^-1 (I^-). Light excitation of the photocatalyst in halide-containing acetonitrile solutions results in competitive quenching by the stabilized halide and the more easily oxidized diffusing halide ion. Marcus theory is used to relate the rate constants to the electron-transfer driving forces for oxidation of the stabilized and unstabilized halide, the difference of which provides the increase in reduction potentials of ΔE°'(Br^•/-) = 150 ± 24 meV and ΔE°'(I^•/-) = 67 ± 13 meV. The data reveal that K _eq is a poor indicator of these reduction potential shifts. Furthermore, the historic and widely used assumption that Coulombic interactions alone are responsible for stabilization must be reconsidered, at least for polarizable halogens.

Photophysics and Electrochemistry of Biomimetic Pyranoflavyliums: What Can Bioinspiration from Red Wines Offer?

Natural dyes and pigments offer incomparable diversity of structures and functionalities, making them an excellent source of inspiration for the design and development of synthetic chromophores with a myriad of emerging properties. Formed during maturation of red wines, pyranoanthocyanins are electron-deficient cationic pyranoflavylium dyes with broad absorption in the visible spectral region and pronounced chemical and photostability. Herein, we survey the optical and electrochemical properties of synthetic pyranoflavylium dyes functionalized with different electron-donating and electron-withdrawing groups, which vary their reduction potentials over a range of about 400 mV. Despite their highly electron-deficient cores, the exploration of pyranoflavyliums as photosensitizers has been limited to the "classical" n-type dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) where they act as electron donors. In light of their electrochemical and spectroscopic properties, however, these biomimetic synthetic dyes should prove to be immensely beneficial as chromophores in p-type DSSCs, where their ability to act as photooxidants, along with their pronounced photostability, can benefit key advances in solar-energy science and engineering.

Cooperative Photoredox- and Nickel-Catalyzed Alkylative Cyclization Reactions of Alkynes with 4-Alkyl-1,4-dihydropyridines

Cooperative photoredox- and nickel-catalyzed alkylative cyclization reactions of iodoalkynes with 4-alkyl-1,4-dihydropyridines as alkylation reagents under visible light irradiation have been achieved to afford the corresponding alkylated cyclopentylidenes in good to high yields. Introduction of substituents at the propargylic position of iodoalkynes has led to the stereoselective formation of E-isomers. The present reaction system provides a novel synthetic method for alkylative cyclization reactions of both terminal and internal alkynes with cooperative photoredox and nickel catalysis.

Controlling Spin-Correlated Radical Pairs with Donor-Acceptor Dyads: A New Concept to Generate Reduced Metal Complexes for More Efficient Photocatalysis

One-electron reduced metal complexes derived from photoactive ruthenium or iridium complexes are important intermediates for substrate activation steps in photoredox catalysis and for the photocatalytic generation of solar fuels. However, owing to the heavy atom effect, direct photochemical pathways to these key intermediates suffer from intrinsic efficiency problems resulting from rapid geminate recombination of radical pairs within the so-called solvent cage. In this study, we prepared and investigated molecular dyads capable of producing reduced metal complexes via an indirect pathway relying on a sequence of energy and electron transfer processes between a Ru complex and a covalently connected anthracene moiety. Our test reaction to establish the proof-of-concept is the photochemical reduction of ruthenium(tris)bipyridine by the ascorbate dianion as sacrificial donor in aqueous solution. The photochemical key step in the Ru-anthracene dyads is the reduction of a purely organic (anthracene) triplet excited state by the ascorbate dianion, yielding a spin-correlated radical pair whose (unproductive) recombination is strongly spin-forbidden. By carrying out detailed laser flash photolysis investigations, we provide clear evidence for the indirect reduced metal complex generation mechanism and show that this pathway can outperform the conventional direct metal complex photoreduction. The further optimization of our approach involving relatively simple molecular dyads might result in novel photocatalysts that convert substrates with unprecedented quantum yields.

Excited-state proton-coupled electron transfer within ion pairs

The use of light to drive proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) reactions has received growing interest, with recent focus on the direct use of excited states in PCET reactions (ES-PCET). Electrostatic ion pairs provide a scaffold to reduce reaction orders and have facilitated many discoveries in electron-transfer chemistry. Their use, however, has not translated to PCET. Herein, we show that ion pairs, formed solely through electrostatic interactions, provide a general, facile means to study an ES-PCET mechanism. These ion pairs formed readily between salicylate anions and tetracationic ruthenium complexes in acetonitrile solution. Upon light excitation, quenching of the ruthenium excited state occurred through ES-PCET oxidation of salicylate within the ion pair. Transient absorption spectroscopy identified the reduced ruthenium complex and oxidized salicylate radical as the primary photoproducts of this reaction. The reduced reaction order due to ion pairing allowed the first-order PCET rate constants to be directly measured through nanosecond photoluminescence spectroscopy. These PCET rate constants saturated at larger driving forces consistent with approaching the Marcus barrierless region. Surprisingly, a proton-transfer tautomer of salicylate, with the proton localized on the carboxylate functional group, was present in acetonitrile. A pre-equilibrium model based on this tautomerization provided non-adiabatic electron-transfer rate constants that were well described by Marcus theory. Electrostatic ion pairs were critical to our ability to investigate this PCET mechanism without the need to covalently link the donor and acceptor or introduce specific hydrogen bonding sites that could compete in alternate PCET pathways.

Halide Photoredox Chemistry

Halide photoredox chemistry is of both practical and fundamental interest. Practical applications have largely focused on solar energy conversion with hydrogen gas, through HX splitting, and electrical power generation, in regenerative photoelectrochemical and photovoltaic cells. On a more fundamental level, halide photoredox chemistry provides a unique means to generate and characterize one electron transfer chemistry that is intimately coupled with X-X bond-breaking and -forming reactivity. This review aims to deliver a background on the solution chemistry of I, Br, and Cl that enables readers to understand and utilize the most recent advances in halide photoredox chemistry research. These include reactions initiated through outer-sphere, halide-to-metal, and metal-to-ligand charge-transfer excited states. Kosower's salt, 1-methylpyridinium iodide, provides an early outer-sphere charge-transfer excited state that reports on solvent polarity. A plethora of new inner-sphere complexes based on transition and main group metal halide complexes that show promise for HX splitting are described. Long-lived charge-transfer excited states that undergo redox reactions with one or more halogen species are detailed. The review concludes with some key goals for future research that promise to direct the field of halide photoredox chemistry to even greater heights.