Oxidative Addition to Palladium(0) Made Easy through Photoexcited‐State Metal Catalysis: Experiment and Computation

Excited‐state palladium catalysis for the stereoselective decarboxylative alkylation of α,β‐unsaturated acids is described by M. Rueping, L. Cavallo and co‐workers in their Communication (DOI: 10.1002/anie.201811439). Oxidative addition of alkylbromide to ground state Pd⁰ is an energy demanding, high barrier process, hence the reaction cannot proceed in the absence of light (dark side of the image). However, Pd⁰ in its triplet state, generated by visible light, can easily react with the alkylbromide through a barrierless SET leading to decarboxylative alkylation (image in sunlight).

from A via a.sfakia on Inoreader http://bit.ly/2T7VjEE