Aerobic Photooxidative Carbon–Carbon Bond Formation between Tertiary Amines and Carbon Nucleophiles

Itoh et al. have reported the aerobic photooxidative carbon–carbon bond formation between tertiary amines and carbon nucleophiles. According to their results, in the presence of molecular oxygen and 2-chloroanthraquinone catalyst, 2-aryl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydroisoquinoline reacts with carbon nucleophiles such as nitroalkanes to form a carbon–carbon bond by the visible-light irradiation promoted radical process. This reaction can be expected to be an environmentally-friendly catalytic oxidation method because it uses an organic photocatalyst with molecular oxygen as the terminal oxidant and visible light from a general-purpose fluorescent lamp.