Visible Light-Induced Photoredox and Copper-Catalyzed C-N Cross-Coupling: A Mechanistic Perspective

The formation of C-N bonds is a vital technique in organic synthesis for creating nitrogen-containing motifs, which has extensive uses in agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, and natural products. Significant progress has been made in constructing C-N bonds using transition metal catalysis. Nevertheless, utilizing alkyl substrates for the formation of Csp3-N bonds is a notable challenge. Synergistic photoredox and copper catalysis have proven to be a powerful tool to tackle this challenge. The development of this research domain is still in its early stages owing to the chemical and technical complexities of this catalytic process. This review attempts to summarize in-depth mechanistic understanding of the photoredox/copper dual catalysed C-N coupling reactions taking into consideration of recently reported experimental and theoretical studies. This review article explores the recent achievements and mechanistic development made in the field of photoredox/copper-catalyzed C-N cross-coupling covering several reactions including, decarboxylative, multicomponent, Ullman type coupling, alkylation, and arylation reactions.+ image