Ni₂P Anchored on Barbituric Acid-Modified Graphitic Carbon Nitride as a Versatile Photocatalyst for Hydroxylation of Aryl Boronic Acids and Oxidation of Benzyl Alcohols

Abstract

Photo-organic chemistry has come up as the new and powerful face of organometallic chemistry and an attractive new field of organic chemistry lately. Every year, a good number of novel organic photochemical transformations as alternatives to preponderant organic transformations are emerging. In the present work, we report a two-component heterogeneous photocatalyst that caters to the efficient hydroxylation of aryl boronic acids and the oxidation of aromatic alcohols with a very imposing selectivity of 100%. The construction of the catalyst involves anchoring Ni 2 P on the barbituric acid-modified graphitic carbon nitride through a multistep synthesis route involving the Ni-BDC MOF as a precursor for Ni 2 P. The adopted synthesis route ensures favorable band structuring and carrier mobility within the catalyst to ensure high efficiency and selectivity. The remarkable success of this work is achieving catalysis in water, which has been recognized as a challenge of late. The described heterogeneous photocatalyst offers opportunities to be explored for the commercial production of phenols, aromatic aldehydes, and other photocatalytic transformations.