Congratulations to Yueyue Dong for her paper accepted by ACS Nano!
The article reported an efficient visible-light-driven deuteration of organic halides using plasmonic Au/CdS as photocatalyst and green D2O as deuterium donor. The high photocatalytic activity is a result of plasmon-generated hot electrons and enhanced charge separation/transfer on the Au/CdS nanocomposites. The deuteration mechanism is proved to be a radical pathway in which C−X bonds are activated by the photoinduced electron transfer to generate active aryl radicals, and the aryl radicals are trapped by the D2O to give the deuterated products. This work provides an efficient approach for visible-light-driven deuteration under mild conditions and sheds light on the interaction between plasmonic NPs and semiconductor, which is very helpful for rational design of photocatalyst.
