Ruthenium(II) Tris(2,2′-bipyridyl) Complex Incorporated in UiO-67 as Photoredox Catalyst

Ruthenium­(II) bis­(2,2′-bipyridine) (2,2′-bipyridyl-5,5′-dicarboxylic acid), Rudcbpy, attached to the UiO-67­(Zr) metal organic framework (MOF), generates upon visible light excitation the localized triplet excited state of the ruthenium­(II) bipyridyl complex that decays partly to a very long-lived (millisecond time scale) photoinduced charge-separated state following a similar behavior as that of analogous ruthenium­(II) tris­(bipyridyl) complex dissolved in water, except that the lifetime of the soluble complex excited state is orders of magnitude shorter. The occurrence of photoinduced charge separation on the Rudcbpy-UiO-67­(Zr) MOF has been proven visually by using methyl viologen as electron acceptor. Rudcbpy-UiO-67­(Zr) behaves as a heterogeneous, reusable, photoredox catalyst promoting debromination of α-bromoketones with excellent selectivity at high conversions. Characterization data show that Rudcbpy-UiO-67­(Zr) is stable under the photocatalytic reaction conditions