Uranyl nitrate as a recyclable homogeneous photocatalyst for selective cross-coupling of N-substituted amines and indoles

A homogeneous photocatalytic recyclable system for the selective radical–radical cross-coupling of N-substituted amines and indoles has been established. This system could conduct in water or acetonitrile, featuring the reuse of uranyl nitrate as the recyclable photocatalyst via a simple extraction. With this mild strategy in hand, good to excellent yields of cross-coupling products could be achieved even under the irradiation of sunlight, including 26 natural product derivatives and 16 natural product inspired re-engineered compounds. A radical–radical cross-coupling mechanism was newly proposed based on experimental evidence and reported literature. This strategy has been also applied to a gram scale synthesis to demonstrate its practical utility.