Solar-Driven C-H Functionalization over Metal-Free Polymer with Tunable Donor-Acceptor Interface

Converting hydrocarbons into high-value-added products using cheap catalysts and energy input (e.g., visible light) under mild conditions has always remained at the heart of chemistry and catalyst design. Despite great efforts on the exploration of effective initiators to boost the C-H functionalization, it is still of great challenge to achieve the direct C-H functionalization over a metal-free catalyst in an initiator-free system. Here, we report a polymer photocatalyst with a tunable donor-acceptor interface to trigger the direct and general C-H bond functionalization for selective oxidation, halogenation, and C-N and C-C coupling reactions using visible light. Both experimental and theoretical results have demonstrated that optimizing the donor-acceptor interface of the polymer photocatalyst boosts the direct activation for C-H bonds with high selectivity to the target product (>99%)..