Visible‐Light‐Promoted Metal‐Free Photocatalytic Direct Aromatic C−H Oxygenation

Abstract

AbstractAromatic C−O bond is ubiquitous in natural product and pharmaceuticals, and their formation have significant importance in organic synthesis. A mild atom‐economic visible‐light photocatalytic approach has been developed for single‐step synthesis of diverse aryl alcohols, ethers and esters through direct C−H functionalization of aromatic ring at ambient condition. This approach uses DDQ as photocatalyst and TBN as co‐catalyst to facilitate the substitution of aromatic C−H by neutral nucleophile oxygen of water, alcohols and carboxylic acids and it uses aerobic oxygen as the terminal oxidant to produce water as the only by‐product.