Visible‐Light‐Induced Homolysis of Earth‐Abundant Metal‐Substrate Complexes: A Complementary Activation Strategy in Photoredox Catalysis

Abstract

The mainstream applications of visible‐light photoredox catalysis predominately involve outer‐sphere single‐electron transfer (SET) or energy transfer (EnT) processes of precious metal Ru II or Ir III complexes or of organic dyes with low photostability. Earth‐abundant metal‐based M n L n‐type (M=metal, L n=polydentate ligands) complexes are rapidly evolving as alternative photocatalysts as they offer not only economic and ecological advantages but also access to the complementary inner‐sphere mechanistic modes, thereby transcending their inherent limitations of ultrashort excited‐state lifetimes for use as effective photocatalysts. The generic process, termed visible‐light‐induced homolysis (VLIH), entails the formation of suitable light‐absorbing ligated metal–substrate complexes (M n L n‐Z; Z=substrate) that can undergo homolytic cleavage to generate M n−1 L n and Z. for further transformations.