Perspectives for Uranyl Photoredox Catalysis

The application of uranyl salts as powerful photoredox catalysts in chemical transformations lags behind the advances achieved in thermocatalysis and structural chemistry. In fact, uranyl cations (UO22+) have proven to be ideal photoredox catalysts in visible-light-driven chemical reactions. The excited state of uranyl cations (*UO22+) that is generated by visible-light irradiation has a long-lived fluorescence lifetime up to microseconds and high oxidizing ability [Eo = +2.6 V vs. standard hydrogen electrode (SHE)]. After ligand-to-metal charge transfer (LMCT), quenching occurs with organic substrates via hydrogen-atom transfer (HAT) or single-electron transfer (SET).broken vertical bar broken vertical bar The last two sentences have been reworded for clarity. Please check.broken vertical bar broken vertical bar Interestingly, the ground state and excited state of uranyl cations (UO22+) are chemically inert toward oxygen molecules, preventing undesired transformations from active oxygen species. This review summarizes recent advances in photoredox transformations enabled by uranyl salts.

Automated summary

The application of uranyl salts as powerful photoredox catalysts in chemical transformations has lagged behind thermocatalysis and structural chemistry. However, recent research has demonstrated that uranyl cations are ideal photoredox catalysts in visible-light-driven reactions with their long-lived fluorescence lifetime and high oxidizing ability. The ground state and excited state of uranyl cations are inert to oxygen molecules, preventing unwanted transformations from active oxygen species.