Synthetic reactions driven by electron-donor-acceptor (EDA) complexes

Zhonglie Yang; Yutong Liu; Kun Cao; Xiaobin Zhang; Hezhong Jiang; Jiahong Li

doi:10.3762/bjoc.17.67

Synthetic reactions driven by electron-donor-acceptor (EDA) complexes

Beilstein J Org Chem. 2021 Apr 6:17:771-799. doi: 10.3762/bjoc.17.67. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Zhonglie Yang¹, Yutong Liu¹, Kun Cao¹, Xiaobin Zhang², Hezhong Jiang¹, Jiahong Li¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Life Science and Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China.
² Irradiation Preservation Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Radiation Chemistry Department, Sichuan Institute of Atomic Energy, Chengdu 610100, China.

Abstract

The reversible, weak ground-state aggregate formed by dipole-dipole interactions between an electron donor and an electron acceptor is referred to as an electron-donor-acceptor (EDA) complex. Generally, upon light irradiation, the EDA complex turns into the excited state, causing an electron transfer to give radicals and to initiate subsequent reactions. Besides light as an external energy source, reactions involving the participation of EDA complexes are mild, obviating transition metal catalysts or photosensitizers in the majority of cases and are in line with the theme of green chemistry. This review discusses the synthetic reactions concerned with EDA complexes as well as the mechanisms that have been shown over the past five years.

Keywords: EDA complex; electron acceptor; electron donor; radical; visible light.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

This work was co-supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.21901216), the research project of the Fund of Science and Technology Agency of Chengdu (No. 2019-YF09-00049-SN), the Open Project Program of Irradiation Preservation Technology Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Sichuan Institute of Atomic Energy (No. FZBC2020002), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, the Sichuan Science and Technology Program (2018HH0090, 2019YFH0032 and 2019YJ0548), the Key project of Sichuan Traditional Chinese Medicine Administration (2018HJZX024), and the 14th Personalized Experimental Project (GX2020160025).