General method for carbon-heteroatom cross-coupling reactions via semiheterogeneous red-light metallaphotocatalysis.

Song, Geyang; Zhang, Wei; Song, Jiameng; Li, Qi; Feng, Yuyu; Liang, Hongyu; Kang, Tengfei; Dong, Jianyang et al. · Nat Commun · 2025

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Combining transition-metal catalysis with photocatalysis has emerged as a valuable, complementary approach for achieving carbon-heteroatom cross-coupling reactions. However, the need to use blue or high-energy near-UV light leads to problems with scalability, chemoselectivity, and catalyst deactivation, which have limited the synthetic applications of this combination. Herein, we report a method for red-light-driven nickel-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions of aryl halides with 11 different types of nucleophiles using a polymeric carbon nitride (CN-OA-m) as a photocatalyst. This semiheterogeneous catalyst system enabled the formation of four different types of carbon-heteroatom bonds (C-N, C-O, C-S, and C-Se) with a wide range of substrates (more than 200 examples) with yields up to 94%. Moreover, the photocatalyst is easily recovered and recycled, which makes it a promising new tool for the development of other reactions involving red-light metallaphotoredox catalysis.