Research Progress of Photoelectric Co-catalysis

Abstract

Photochemical and electrochemical reactions, which are mild and green, have been widely used in organic synthesis in recent years. To push the limits of both synthetic technologies, organic chemists have focused on using these two strategies to promote organic transformation in a single reaction system. A series of photoelectrochemical strategies have been developed, and the main one at present is electrochemically mediated photoredox catalysis. In addition, photoexcitation-assisted electroredox strategies have also gradually shown their potential in organic synthesis. These strategies realize the complementary advantages and disadvantages of photochemistry and electrochemistry, and can solve the problems that can not be solved by a single synthetic technology, such as removing oxidizing reducing agents that complicate the reaction, generating intermediates with high activity under mild conditions, and so on. In this paper, the research progress of photoelectrochemical strategies is summarized according to the existing photoelectric catalysis reactions, and the possible mechanism of some reactions is discussed.

Pd/Au bimetallic nanoparticle-anchored BiVO4/TiO2 nanotube arrays toward efficient photoelectrocatalytic Suzuki–Miyaura reactions

“…As shown in Table 2 (entry 19), the ortho-substituted bromobenzenes (1-bromo-2chlorobenzene) exhibited moderate reactivity with a product yield of 82%, which could originate from the steric hindrance during the cross-coupling reaction. As expected, a high yield of the coupling products was observed with para-substituted aryl halides (Table 2, entries [16][17][18]. In contrast, meta-substituted aryl halides exhibited lower activity than that of para-and ortho-substituents, which likely resulted from the steric hindrance and electronic effects (Table 2, entry 20).…”

“…Combining the benefits of photocatalysis and electrocatalysis (e.g., mild reaction conditions, high efficiency, low-cost equipment and environmental compatibility), photoelectrocatalysis is particularly intriguing in the field of green organic transformations, such as redox reactions, coupling reactions and beyond. [13][14][15][16] For photoelectrocatalytic organic synthesis, the exploration of suitable photoelectrode materials, which usually have a significant impact on both the reaction thermodynamics and electron transfer kinetics, is pivotal for achieving the highly selective transformation of organic compounds. 17,18 Interestingly, it has been reported that ordered TiO 2 nanotube arrays (NTAs) exhibit excellent photoelectric properties due to their high light absorption coefficient, oriented charge transfer route and good stability.…”