Copper Catalyst Activation Driven by Photoinduced Electron Transfer: A Prototype Photolatent Click Catalyst

Lydie Harmand (1) , Sarah Cadet (1) , Brice Kauffmann (2) , Luca Scarpantonio (1) , Pinar Batat (3) , Gediminas Jonusauskas (3) , Nathan Mcclenaghan (1) , Dominique Lastécouères (1) , Jean-Marc Vincent (1)

1 ISM - Institut des Sciences Moléculaires
2 IECB - Institut Européen de Chimie et Biologie
3 LOMA - Laboratoire Ondes et Matière d'Aquitaine

While the copper(II) tren ketoprofenate precatalyst 1 is inactive at room temperature in methanol, it is quantitatively and rapidly reduced to its cuprous state upon light irradiation to provide a highly reactive click catalyst. By simply introducing air into the reaction medium the catalysis can be switched off and then switched on again by bubbling argon followed by irradiation.

Mots clés: photolatent catalysts; click chemistry; copper; Huisgen cycloaddition; photocontrolled catalysts

Domaines: Catalyse; Chimie de coordination; Chimie-Physique [physics.chem-ph]

Lydie Harmand, Sarah Cadet, Brice Kauffmann, Luca Scarpantonio, Pinar Batat, et al.. Copper Catalyst Activation Driven by Photoinduced Electron Transfer: A Prototype Photolatent Click Catalyst. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2012, 51 (29), pp.7137-7141. ⟨10.1002/anie.201203014⟩. ⟨hal-00731301⟩