title: Visible-Light-Induced Photoredox Catalysis of Dye-Sensitized Titanium Dioxide: Selective Aerobic Oxidation of Organic Sulfides.
abstract: TiO2 photoredox catalysis has recently attracted much interest for use in performing challenging organic transformations under mild reaction conditions. However, the reaction scheme is hampered by the fact that TiO2 can only be excited by UV light of wavelengths λ shorter than 385 nm. One promising strategy to overcome this issue is to anchor an organic, preferably metal-free dye onto the surface of TiO2. Importantly, we observed that the introduction of a catalytic amount of the redox mediator TEMPO [(2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidin-1-yl)oxyl] ensured the stability of the anchored dye, alizarin red S, thereby resulting in the selective oxidation of organic sulfides with O2. This result affirms the essential role of the redox mediator in enabling the organic transformations by visible-light photoredox catalysis.
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore, 639798, Singapore.
authors.forename: Xianjun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Lang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Photochemistry, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China.
authors.forename: Jincai
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore, 639798, Singapore. chenxd@ntu.edu.sg.
authors.forename: Xiaodong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
keywords: aerobic oxidation; photoredox catalysis; redox meditor; sulfoxides; visible light