Research on photo-organocatalysis succeeds

A paper published one month ago by Paolo Melchiorre’s research group in J. Am. Chem. Soc. is among the Top 20 most downloaded articles over the last 12 months.

The paper describes the visible-light-driven, phase-transfer-catalyzed, enantioselective perfluoroalkylation and trifluoromethylation of cyclic β-ketoesters. The photo-organocatalytic process, which occurs at ambient temperature and under visible light illumination, is triggered by the photochemical activity of in situ-generated electron donor–acceptor complexes, arising from the association of chiral enolates and perfluoroalkyl iodides. Preliminary mechanistic studies are reported.

Photo-organocatalytic Enantioselective Perfluoroalkylation of β-Ketoesters
Ł. Woźniak, J. J. Murphy, P. Melchiorre
J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2015, 137, 5678-5681