Radical addition to acrylonitrile via catalytic photochemical decarboxylation of aliphatic carboxylic acids

Photoinduced electron transfer (PET)-promoted decarboxylation of aliphatic carboxylic acids using catalytic amounts of an arene and electron-acceptor (>2.5 mol %) was found to proceed efficiently to give adducts even when only 1 equiv of acrylonitrile was employed. The use of catalytic quantities of the arene and electron-acceptor demonstrates that the yield of the adduct is strongly influenced by the efficiency of back electron transfer from the radical anion of the electron-acceptor to radical intermediate 1.