A novel Ru polypyridyl complex with an N-heterocyclic carbene ligand was successfully synthesised and characterised. The complex exhibited an intense absorption band in the visible-light region derived from the strong...

Herein, we report visible-light-driven hydroacylation of unactivated alkenes. We employed benzimidazolines as new acyl donors and achieved perfect regioselectivity, high functional-group tolerance, and excellent substrate generality. We also performed mechanistic experiments to elucidate the detailed reaction mechanism. This is the first example of (1) hydroacylation of unactivated alkenes using (2) easily prepared acyl donors under (3) visible-light irradiation. Our findings offer a new strategy to synthesize a wide variety of ketones under mild conditions.