Radical reactions are a powerful class of chemical transformations. However, the formation of radical species to initiate these reactions has often required the use of stoichiometric amounts of toxic reagents, such as tributyltin hydride. Recently, the use of visible-light-mediated photoredox catalysis to generate radical species has become popular, but the scope of these radical precursors has been limited. Here, we describe the identification of reaction conditions under which photocatalysts such as fac-Ir(ppy)3 can be utilized to form radicals from unactivated alkyl, alkenyl and aryl iodides. The generated radicals undergo reduction via hydrogen atom abstraction or reductive cyclization. The reaction protocol utilizes only inexpensive reagents, occurs under mild reaction conditions, and shows exceptional functional group tolerance. Reaction efficiency is maintained upon scale-up and decreased catalyst loading, and the reaction time can be significantly shortened when the reaction is performed in a flow reactor.

The deficiency of robust and practical methods for 18F-radiofluorination is a bottleneck for positron emission tomography (PET) tracer development. Here, we report the first transition-metal-assisted 18F-deoxyfluorination of phenols. The transformation benefits from readily available phenols as starting materials, tolerance of moisture and ambient atmosphere, large substrate scope, and translatability to generate doses appropriate for PET imaging.

We report direct amination of electron-poor arenes and evaluate the crucial factors for the enhanced reactivity in hexafluoroisopropanol.

We report an aromatic C–H hydroxylation protocol in which the arene is activated through η6-coordination to an iridium(III) complex. η6-Coordination of the arene increases its electrophilicity and allows for high positional selectivity of hydroxylation at the site of least electron density. Through investigation of intermediate η5-cyclohexadienyl adducts and arene exchange reactions, we evaluate incorporation of arene π-activation into a catalytic cycle for C–H functionalization.

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