Abstract
Photochemistry has become a key area of research in synthetic chemistry over the last
few decades. More recently, interest has grown in merging this area with transition
metal catalysis to develop new reactivity. One key photoinduced step in this context
is ligand dissociation from transition metal complexes. This has been used to develop
light-gated catalysis, allowing for on/off control over a reaction. However, this
concept can only result in a single product outcome. Our group has focused on the
development of cobalt-catalyzed reactivity switches, enabled by a simple photodissociation
step, which promotes one mechanistic path or another. As such, we can use a single
catalytic platform to yield two different outcomes depending on whether the reaction
is irradiated with light or not. This short review will focus on works in this area
by our group and others.
1 Introduction
2 Photocontrolled Hydroboration
3 Hydrogenation and Hydroformylation
4 Conclusion
Key words
cobalt - catalysis - photochemistry - photoswitching - hydroboration