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Cost-effective and efficient photocatalysis are highly desirable in chemical synthesis. Here we demonstrate that readily prepared suspensions of APbBr3 (A = Cs or methylammonium (MA)) type perovskite colloids (ca. 2–100 nm) can selectively photocatalyze carbon–carbon bond formation reactions, i.e., α-alkylations. Specifically, we demonstrate α-alkylation of aldehydes with a turnover number (TON) of over 52,000 under visible light illumination. Hybrid organic/inorganic perovskites are revolutionizing photovoltaic research and are now impacting other research fields, but their exploration in organic synthesis is rare. Our low-cost, easy-to-process, highly efficient and bandedge-tunable perovskite photocatalyst is expected to bring new insights in chemical synthesis.
Zhu et al. (Wed,) studied this question.