A dual light-driven palladium catalyst: Breaking the barriers in carbonylation reactions

Transition metal-catalyzed coupling reactions have become one of the most important tools in modern synthesis. However, an inherent limitation to these reactions is the need to balance operations, because the factors that favor bond cleavage via oxidative addition ultimately inhibit bond formation via reductive elimination. Here, we describe an alternative strategy that exploits simple visible-light excitation of palladium to drive both oxidative addition and reductive elimination with low barriers. Palladium-catalyzed carbonylations can thereby proceed under ambient conditions, with challenging aryl or alkyl halides and difficult nucleophiles, and generate valuable carbonyl derivatives such as acid chlorides, esters, amides, or ketones in a now-versatile fashion. Mechanistic studies suggest that concurrent excitation of palladium(0) and palladium(II) intermediates is responsible for this activity.