Visible light-driven carbon-carbon reductive coupling of aromatic ketones activated by Ni-doped CdS quantum dots: An insight into the mechanism

Photocatalytic reductive coupling of carbon-carbon bond to assemble complex molecular frameworks holds the great promising for solar energy storage and value-added chemicals production. This process generally demands noble-photosensitizer or powered by ultraviolet light, along with harsh conditions, which inevitably induces undesired by-product with poor selectivity. Here, we demonstrated selectively reductive aromatic ketones into pinacol on low-cost photocatalysts Ni-doped quantum dots, in which the yield can reach up to 88% with ketones conversion more than 95% under visible-light irradiation for 5 h. A novel mechanism dedicated to the interaction between in situ generated oxidized sacrificial agents TEA•+ and reactants for key ketyl radical formation via proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) is elaborately probed by EPR measurement, iotope labeling experiments and DFT calculation. This work emerges a new family of catalysts for C-C coupling by solar energy. More importantly, it provides more credible demonstration for TEA activated photocatalytic conversion in organic synthesis.