Design, Synthesis, and Application of Highly Reducing Organic Visible-Light Photocatalysts.

A series of inexpensive, easily tunable, and highly reducing organic photocatalysts (PCs) that exhibit strong absorption in the visible region are described. Time-dependent density functional theory calculations were applied to corroborate the experimental observations and explain the relationship between the structure and property. The photocatalytic efficiency of these PCs was demonstrated by catalyzing several challenging reactions and the radical cascade cyclization of 1,6-diyne with superior photocatalytic efficiency to other organic photocatalysts.