Acetylation of alcohols and amines under visible light irradiation: diacetyl as an acylation reagent and photosensitizer

Abstract

This work developed an unprecedented strategy for the acetylation of alcohols and amines using diacetyl as both an acylation reagent and a photosensitizer. This environmentally friendly process exhibits excellent functional group tolerance, a wide substrate scope, operational simplicity and no need for the use of exogenous dehydrating reagents, activating reagents or photocatalysts. The potential application of this strategy to pharmaceutical chemistry was demonstrated by the late-stage modification of various drug molecules, and the process was found to be readily scalable without any loss of efficiency. Preliminary mechanistic results showed that the in situ generation of peracetic acid is responsible for the facile acylation of structurally diverse alcohols and amines using this technique.