Micellized Tris(bipyridine)ruthenium Catalysts Affording Preparative Amounts of Hydrated Electrons with a Green Light-Emitting Diode

We have explored alkyl substitution of the ligands as a means to improve the performance of the title complexes in photoredox catalytic systems that produce synthetically useable amounts of hydrated electrons through photon pooling. Despite generating a super-reductant, these electron sources only consume the bioavailable ascorbate and are driven by a green light-emitting diode (LED). The substitutions influence the catalyst activity through the interplay of the quenching parameters, the recombination rate of the reduced catalyst OER and the ascorbyl radical across the micelle-water interface, and the quantum yield of OER photoionization. Laser flash photolysis yields comprehensive information on all these processes and allows quantitative predictions of the activity observed in LED kinetics, but the latter method provides the only access to the catalyst stability under illumination on the timescale of the syntheses. The homoleptic complex with dimethylbipyridine ligands emerges as the optimum that combines an activity twice as high with an undiminished stability in relation to the parent compound. With this complex, we have effected dehalogenations of alkyl and aryl chlorides and fluorides, hydrogenations of carbon-carbon double bonds, and self- as well as cross-coupling reactions. All the substrates employed are impervious to ordinary photoredox catalysts but present no problems to the hydrated electron as a super-reductant. A particularly attractive application is selective deuteration with high isotopic purity, which is achieved simply by using heavy water as the solvent.