To start our investigation, bromide
1a bearing a phenyl group at the C2-position of the indole ring was selected as the model substrate. The dearomatization reaction was conducted under blue LEDs in the presence of 4-CzIPN as the photocatalyst (PC) (
Table 1). After extensive evaluation of the reaction conditions, the spirocyclizative hydroarylation product
2a was obtained in 69% isolated yield by employing HEH and DIPEA as co-reductants, and MeOH: H
2O (9:1) as the mixed solvent under argon for 18 h at room temperature (entry 1). Notably, it was intriguing to find 6-
exo-trig cyclizative dearomatization of the non-activated 2-phenyl ring occurred selectively rather than dearomatization of the indole's ring
via a 5-
exo-trig cyclization at C2–C3 double bond [
8]. Moreover, the main side product (about 5%) was formed
via direct debromination. The structure of
2a was confirmed by X-ray crystallographic analysis. Control reactions revealed that no desired product was produced without 4-CzIPN or light, suggesting the reaction was promoted by light (entries 2 and 3). Moreover, only very low yield was obtained without HEH while using 1 equiv. of DIPEA (entry 4). And the reaction was shut down in the absence of DIPEA (entry 5). A significant decrease in the yield was observed when DIPEA was replaced by Et
3N or DBU (entries 6 and 7). Notably, the yield was reduced when DIPEA was used as the sole reductant (entry 8), and only 20% yield could be received with HEH as the sole reductant (entry 9). It appeared that 4-CzIPN was the most suitable PC after comparing with other photocatalysts such as [Ir(ppy)
2(dtbbpy)]PF
6, Ru(bpy)
3Cl
2 and
fac-Ir(ppy)
3 (entries 10-12). A slightly lower yield of
2a was obtained when MeOH or MeOH: H
2O (20:1) was used as the solvent (entries 13 and 14). Finally, the yield of
2a decreased dramatically when the iodide analog of
1a was employed (entry 15), and only trace product was detected using the chloride analog (entry 16).