Using Intramolecular Energy Transfer to Transform non-Photoactive, Visible-Light-Absorbing Chromophores into Sensitizers for Photoredox Reactions

This work discusses the synthesis, photophysical behavior, and photoinduced electron-transfer reactivity of multichromophoric molecules having a visible-light-absorbing MLCT component coupled to a ligand with a localized excited state of the same spin multiplicity that serves to lengthen the excited-state lifetime of the complex significantly. The appropriate ligands were prepared by Wittig coupling of a bipyridine derivative with pyrenecarboxaldehyde. The modified ligand, a pyrene-vinyl-bipyridyl ensemble (pyrv-bpy), was then reacted with RuCl3 to yield [(pyrv-bpy)(2)RuCl2]. The complex has MLCT absorption out to 800 nm, and excitation results in the formation of a ligand-localized excited state with a lifetime long enough to undergo bimolecular electron-transfer reactions. The pyrenylvinyl localized excited state of the complex reacts via photoinduced electron transfer with a variety of viologen and diquat electron acceptors. The remarkable aspect of the electron-transfer process is that whereas the excited state can be considered to be ligand-localized the photoredox reaction almost certainly involves the direct formation of the one-electron-oxidized metal center.