Photoinduced Iron-Catalyzed ipso-Nitration of Aryl Halides via Single-Electron Transfer

A photoinduced iron-catalyzed ipso-nitration of aryl halides with KNO2 has been developed, in which aryl iodides, bromides, and some of aryl chlorides are feasible. The mechanism investigations show that the in situ formed iron complex by FeSO4, KNO2, and 1,10-phenanthroline acts as the light-harvesting photocatalyst with a longer lifetime of the excited state, and the reaction undergoes a photoinduced single-electron transfer (SET) process. This work represents an example for the photoinduced iron-catalyzed Ullmann-type couplings.