Visible-light-driven oxidation of primary C-H bonds over CdS with dual co-catalysts graphene and TiO2

Selective activation of primary C-H bonds for fine chemicals synthesis is of crucial importance for the sustainable exploitation of available feedstocks. Here, we report a viable strategy to synthesize ternary GR-CdS-TiO2 composites with an intimate spatial integration and sheet-like structure, which is afforded by assembling two co-catalysts, graphene and TiO2, into the semiconductor CdS matrix with specific morphology as a visible light harvester. The GR-CdS-TiO2 composites are able to serve as a highly selective visible-light-driven photocatalyst for oxidation of saturated primary C-H bonds using benign oxygen as oxidant under ambient conditions. This work demonstrates a wide, promising scope of adopting co-catalyst strategy to design more efficient semiconductor-based photocatalyst toward selective activation of C-H bonds using solar light and molecular oxygen.