Water facilitated photolysis of perfluoroalkyl iodides via halogen bonding

Abstract

The sigma (σ)-hole effect of perfluoroalkyl iodides, an interaction between the σ* antibonding orbitals of the C–I bond and a Lewis base, has proven efficient for the generation of perfluoroalkyl radicals via a single electron transfer (SET) process upon visible light irradiation. However, most of the developed methods usually require superstoichiometric amounts of amines; we herein report a simpler alternative water-facilitated photolysis of perfluoroalkyl iodides instead of SET.