Exploring Visible Light for Carbon–Nitrogen and Carbon–Oxygen Bond Formation via Nickel Catalysis

• Shengqing Zhu^a
• Huan Li^a
• Yingying LI^a
• Zhonghou HUANG^a
• Lingling Chu^a

• ^aState Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, Center for Advanced Low-Dimension Materials, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China

Heteroatom-containing motifs are one of the most privileged scaffolds for pharmaceuticals, agrochemical, and functional materials. Transition-metal-catalyzed carbon-heteroatom bond-forming reactions have emerged as an indispensable synthetic tool for the rapid assembly of these valuable skeletons. Although impressive progress, the development of general and efficient methods for the catalytic construction of carbon-heteroatom bonds with earth-abundant catalysts under mild conditions is still highly desirable. Utilizing the new and unique reactivity uncovered by photo excitation, recently, exciting progress has been made in the area of visible light-driven nickel-catalyzed carbon-heteroatom bond-forming reactions, enabling facile access the diverse carbon-heteroatom bonds under exceptionally mild conditions. In this review, we highlight recent synthetic methodology development for the formation of C-N and C-O bonds via visible-light-driven high-valent nickel complexes or photoexcited nickel complexes, with in-depth discussions with reaction designs and mechanistic scenarios.

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