Recent progress in photoinduced direct desulfurization of thiols

Abstract

The reduction of mercaptans plays an important role in diverse areas such as protein synthesis, polymer science, environmental study, and pharmaceutical chemistry. Despite significant advancements in this area, particularly in light-induced transformations, review articles have rarely been reported on this topic. Thus, this review article emphasizes the direct photoinduced desulfurization and functionalization of thiols to alkanes or coupling products, with a focus on significant advancements made in the last decade. The progress is discussed according to the types of bonds formed from the cleavage of C_sp³–SH bonds.