On the basis of the aforementioned initiator design, our investigation commenced with the model reaction between 1-octene (
1a) and ethyl cyanoacetate (
2). As an abundant industrial feedstock ($2.7 USD per mole, based on the list price from Energy Chemical Co., one of the leading lab chemical suppliers in China, as of April 2020), ethyl cyanoacetate exhibits versatile utility for fine chemical synthesis because of its multiple orthogonal reactive sites, but alkene hydroalkylation involving cyanoacetate has thus far been reported with limited success [
10]. After screening the reaction parameters, we have determined that the desired hydroalkylation reaction can proceed under the irradiation of blue LED light at ambient temperature, showing exclusive anti-Markovnikov regioselectivity and almost quantitative yield (
Table 1, entry 1). Notably, best reaction performance was obtained in the presence of excess ethyl cyanoacetate without external solvent. Under the optimized condition, the dual-component initiator is composed of eosin Y-Na
2 and
N-(pivaloyloxy)phthalimide, with control experiments confirming the necessity of light and each component (entries 2—4). Following the control experiment of
Table 1, entry 4, prolonging the reaction time to 24 h in the absence of
N-(pivaloyloxy)phthalimide afforded 73% of alkene conversion and 40% yield of the product based on calibrated GC analysis. The substantial product formation catalyzed by eosin Y-Na
2 alone indicates that parallel HAT processes may also be possible [
11]. In addition, the use of pyridine as base is beneficial to achieve enhanced reaction efficiency (entries 1
vs. 5). Upon investigating an array of photocatalysts, we discovered that eosin Y-Na
2, with a relatively low loading (0.5 mol%), provided superior results compared to other organic dyes (Table S1 in Supporting information) and the more expensive Ru-bipyridyl complex (entry 6). Evaluation of a series of NHP esters (Table S2 in Supporting information) and bases (entry 7 and Table S3 in Supporting information) further established the metal-free standard condition.