Interface Synergy of Exposed Oxygen Vacancy and Pd Lewis Acid Sites Enabling Superior Cooperative Photoredox Synthesis

Abstract Photo‐driven cross‐coupling of o ‐arylenediamines and alcohols has emerged as an alternative for the synthesis of bio‐active benzimidazoles. However, tackling the key problem related to efficient adsorption and activation of both coupling partners over photocatalysts towards activity enhancement remains a challenge. Here, we demonstrate an efficient interface synergy strategy by coupling exposed oxygen vacancies (V O ) and Pd Lewis acid sites for benzimidazole and hydrogen (H 2 ) coproduction over Pd‐loaded TiO 2 nanospheres with the highest photoredox activity compared to previous works so far. The results show that the introduction of V O optimizes the energy band structure and supplies…

• NN
  National Natural Science Foundation of China

  Awards: 21872029, 22472032, U1463204, 22072023, 22172030, 21173045
• CP
  China Postdoctoral Science Foundation

  Award: 2023M740513
• NS
  Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province

  Awards: 2017J07002, 2019J01631