Novel Photocatalytic Approaches for Ecosustainable Synthesis

Over the past decades, photochemical synthesis, i.e. organic synthesis that uses light as source of energy to break and forge bonds, has vehemently re-emerged as an important theme of research in ecosustainable organic chemistry. Thanks to the possibility to excite a precise functional group in a complex reaction mixture and the peculiar reactivity of the so-formed excited states, photochemistry is very attractive for both synthetic researchers and industrial practitioners. An added value to this activation manifold is represented by photocatalysis: in these reactions, the substrate does not absorb light directly, instead low-energy light is absorbed by a purposely added molecule (photocatalyst, PC) that converts this energy into chemical energy for substrate activation, thus limiting undesired processes. This activation step can occur via Single-Electron Transfer (SET), Hydrogen-Atom Transfer (HAT) or Energy Transfer (ET) and in the present thesis I decided to study their application to develop novel ecosustainable synthetic protocols.