Visible-light photocatalytic trifluoromethylation of arenes using graphene oxide as a metal-free photocatalyst

Abstract

Photocatalytic trifluoromethylation has been considered as an efficient method to introduce trifluoromethyl groups into organic substances. However, the relatively high cost and toxic feature of the metal-based photocatalysts have become major obstacles for their further applications in this area. In this work, graphene oxide sheets have been successfully utilized as a kind of metal-free photocatalyst for the trifluoromethylation of arenes, using inexpensive CF₃SO₂Na as the CF₃ radical source. It is shown that graphene oxide sheets exhibit suitable bandgaps under visible light irradiation to photocatalyse the oxide CF₃SO₂Na to form the electrophilic radical CF₃, which efficiently induces the trifluoromethylation of typical benzene molecules and some of their derivatives.