Visible-light initiated aerobic oxidations: a critical review

The development of new and highly efficient strategies for the rapid construction of complicated molecular structures has huge implications and remains a preeminent goal in present day synthetic chemistry. In the past ten years, visible light promoted aerobic oxidations have been emerging as one of the fastest growing fields in organic chemistry because of their low cost, easy availability and environmental friendliness. This review describes and highlights the scope and limitations, recent research progress in novel methodology development, and applications in organic synthesis, as well as the mechanisms of these visible light promoted aerobic oxidation reactions. The discussion contains several sections based on the following reaction types: (1) alcohols to aldehydes; (2) amines to nitriles; (3) methylarenes to aldehydes; (4) boronic acids to phenols; (5) formation of carbonyl compounds or ketones; (6) -keto sulfones; (7) sulfoxides; (8) amine to amide; and (9) some other reactions.