Multi-Photocatalyst Cascades: Merging Singlet Oxygen Photooxygenations with Photoredox Catalysis for the Synthesis of Alkaloid Frameworks.

The development of photocascades that rapidly transform simple and readily accessible furan substrates into polycyclic alkaloid frameworks or erythrina natural products is described. Each of the sequences developed makes use of photocatalyzed energy transfer processes, which generate singlet oxygen, to set up the substrates for the second photocatalyzed reaction, wherein electron transfer generates carbon-centered radicals for the cyclizations that give the final complex frameworks. A chemical switch has been developed that can "switch off" one photocatalyst; thus, allowing a second photocatalyst to take over control of the sequence. As a corollary, this strategy represents the first time it has been possible to use multiple photocatalysts in photocascades, and, as such, it expands significantly the reactions that can be included in such cascades and the order in which they can be initiated.

Visible-Light-Promoted Generation of α-Ketoradicals from Vinyl-bromides and Molecular Oxygen: Synthesis of Indenones and Dihydroindeno[1,2-c]chromenes.

Ortho-alkynylated α-bromocinnamates can be converted by a visible-light-mediated photocascade reaction with molecular oxygen into either indenones or dihydroindeno[1,2-c]chromenes. The one-step process features key photochemical steps, that is, the initial activation of vinyl bromides through energy transfer to give α-ketoradicals in a reaction with molecular oxygen, followed by α-oxidation of an arene moiety by 6-π electrocyclization, and subsequent hydroxylation by an electron-transfer process from the same photocatalyst leads to the dihydroindeno[1,2-c]chromenes.