Visible-Light-Induced Photoreductive Generation of Radicals from Epoxides and Aziridines

摘要

As a result of its unique features, radical chemistry has become a reliable and efficient tool for synthetic chemists over the last fifty years. Nowadays, the necessity to devise ecocompatible alternatives for the generation of radical species has stimulated intense research efforts. The development of single-electron transfer (SET) redox processes using catalytic amounts of metal complexes would be a significant advance. For that purpose, the use of visible light and a photoredox catalyst such as [Ru(bpy)3]Cl2 has lately appeared to offer very promising possibilities. Thus, following the pioneering findings of Cano-Yelo and Deronzier, recent contributions from the research groups of Yoon, MacMillan, and Stephenson have demonstrated that enones, perfluorated iodides, as well as activated chlorides and bromides are suitable substrates for the formation of radicals by visible light-catalyzed reductive electron transfers.