Sustainable and Mild Catalytic Acceptorless Dehydrogenations

Abstract Catalytic acceptorless dehydrogenation of organic molecules plays a crucial role in fine-chemical synthesis as well as in energy storage and transport. In particular, the acceptorless dehydrogenation of saturated N-heteroarenes and hydrocarbons is realized by both transition-metal-free and transition-metal-catalyzed approaches. In this direction, our research group aims to develop mild catalytic acceptorless dehydrogenation protocols, in the main by using photoredox approaches. In this account, we briefly discuss the advances made by our group on the dehydrogenation of saturated N-heterocycles, aliphatic alcohols, and relatively challenging hydrocarbons. 1 Introduction 1.1 Challenges Associated with Catalytic Acceptorless Dehydrogenation 2 Transition-Metal-Free Dehydrogenation of N-Heterocycles 3 Photoinduced Hybrid-Catalysis-Enabled Dehydrogenations 3.1 The Binary Catalyst System 3.2 The Ternary Catalyst System 3.3 The Noble-Metal-Free Catalyst System 3.4 Catalytic Acceptorless Dehydrogenation of Aliphatic Alcohols 4 Self-Photo-Sensitizing Hydrogen Atom Transfer Catalysis 5 Summary