Yajing Lian's research while affiliated with ACG Worldwide and other places

... Since the oxidation potentials of unactivated or deactivated olefins or arenes lie at (or beyond) the energy threshold of single-photon PRC, the development of highly oxidizing photocatalysts is highly desirable to provide access to facile functionalization of these important and abundant feedstock chemicals. While it has been demonstrated that classical chemical oxidant 2,3-dichloro-5,6-dicyano-1,4-benzoquinone (DDQ) can function as a closed-shell photocatalyst with an excited-state reduction potential ≈+3 V vs SCE and can oxidatively engage elec-tron-deficient arenes [124,125], the application of DDQ is rather undesirable due to the requirement for larger catalyst loadings (10-20 mol %) [126], the use of tert-butyl nitrite co-oxidant that forms explosive mixtures in air, evolution of HCN gas upon contact with moisture [127] and catalyst degradation via side reactions with certain amines under the reaction conditions [124]. These limitations are easily overcome by i) oxidative conPET or ii) the merging of photo-and electrochemistry through the use of anodic oxidation (vide infra, especially for DDQ) and the former will now be presented. ...

... In 2018, Frenette and colleagues developed an organophotocatalytic CÀ H alkylation method for quinolines using an acridinium salt (PC8) as the photoredox catalyst and aliphatic carboxylic acids as alkylating reagents (Scheme 26). [59] In one example, the reaction of 4-methylquinoline (15 a) with acetic acid (40) proceeded smoothly, yielding 2,4-dimethylquinoline (16 a) in a 43 % yield, demonstrating its effectiveness in CÀ H methylation. ...