Bis-Anthracene Fused Porphyrin As An Efficient Photocatalyst: Facile Synthesis And Visible-Light-Driven Oxidative Coupling Of Amines

Development of high-performance photocatalysts for the conversion of amines is of great importance, but has remained a challenging task. Here, a bis-anthracene fused porphyrin (AFP) was synthesized in a high yield by a facile synthetic protocol, which involves a Suzuki coupling for the conjugation of two anthracene groups with a porphyrin ring, followed by oxidative cyclodehydrogenation. When serving as a photocatalyst, AFP exhibits an outstanding photocatalytic performance for the visible-light-induced aerobic oxidation of amines to imines at ambient conditions. Density functional theory calculations revealed that the low energy band gap, caused by the large planar and pi-extended porphyrin structure of AFP, contributed to its high photocatalytic performance.