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Artificial photosynthesis directed toward organic synthesis
Emulating the concept of natural photosynthesis has long been a focus of chemists in an effort to harness solar light as an energy source using water as an electron donor and a source material. Here, the authors present an artificial photosynthetic system that can functionalize styrenes via C–H activation and water splitting.
Herein, we report a synthetically pioneering and meaningful strategy of APOS, where the carbohydroxylation of C = C double bonds is accomplished via a three-component coupling with H 2 evolution using dual functions of semiconductor photocatalysts, i.e., silver-loaded titanium dioxide (Ag/TiO 2) and rhodium–chromium–cobalt-loaded aluminum-doped strontium titanate (RhCrCo/SrTiO 3:Al). A greener alternative and more attractive strategy for achieving the carbohydroxylation involves C–H bond activation to generate the carbon-centered radicals, in which two electrons and two protons are in total released from organic substrates and water (Fig. Even though well-designed photocatalytic systems have recently enabled unique dehydrogenative transformations 8, 37, 38, sunlight has not yet been used, and the role of water as the electron donor as well as the potential scalability of such reactions for organic synthesis remain to be established.
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