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Visible Light–Driven Cascade Carbon–Carbon Bond Scission for Organic Transformations and Plastics Recycling
Summary
Researchers developed a visible light-driven vanadium photocatalyst system that selectively cleaves carbon-carbon bonds in unactivated alcohols and can depolymerise hydroxyl-terminated polymers including polyethylene glycol, polycaprolactone block copolymers, and polyethylene into fuels and chemical feedstocks such as formic acid and methyl formate. The approach integrates photoredox catalysis with plastic recycling, offering a potential route to repurpose non-biodegradable polymers under ambient conditions.
Significant efforts are devoted to developing artificial photosynthetic systems to produce fuels and chemicals in order to cope with the exacerbating energy and environmental crises in the world now. Nonetheless, the large-scale reactions that are the focus of the artificial photosynthesis community, such as water splitting, are thus far not economically viable, owing to the existing, cheaper alternatives to the gaseous hydrogen and oxygen products. As a potential substitute for water oxidation, here, a unique, visible light-driven oxygenation of carbon-carbon bonds for the selective transformation of 32 unactivated alcohols, mediated by a vanadium photocatalyst under ambient, atmospheric conditions is presented. Furthermore, since the initial alcohol products remain as substrates, an unprecedented photodriven cascade carbon-carbon bond cleavage of macromolecules can be performed. Accordingly, hydroxyl-terminated polymers such as polyethylene glycol, its block co-polymer with polycaprolactone, and even the non-biodegradable polyethylene can be repurposed into fuels and chemical feedstocks, such as formic acid and methyl formate. Thus, a distinctive approach is presented to integrate the benefits of photoredox catalysis into environmental remediation and artificial photosynthesis.
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