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Updated: Aug 9, 2025

Controlled Photoredox Ring-Opening Polymerization of O-Carboxyanhydrides Mediated by Ni/Zn Complexes
Published on: November 21, 2017
Three-component reductive conjugate addition/aldol tandem reaction enabled by nickel/photoredox dual catalysis
Hongping Zhao1, Weiming Yuan1,2,3
1Key Laboratory of Material Chemistry for Energy Conversion and Storage, Ministry of Education, Hubei Key Laboratory of Bioinorganic Chemistry and Materia Medica, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) 1037 Luoyu Road Wuhan 430074 PR China yuanwm@hust.edu.cn.
Abstract:
A three-component reductive cross-coupling of aryl halides, aldehydes, and alkenes by nickel/photoredox dual catalysis is disclosed. The key to success for this tandem transformation is to identify α-silylamine as a unique organic reductant, which releases silylium ions instead of protons to prevent unwanted protonation processes, and meanwhile serves as Lewis acid to activate aldehydes in situ. This dual catalytic protocol completes a traditional conjugate addition/aldol sequence that eliminates the requirement of organometallic reagents and metal-based reductants, thus providing a mild synthetic route to highly valuable β-hydroxyl carbonyl compounds with contiguous 1,2-stereocenters.
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