Solar energy has been widely captured by silicon solar cell and converted towards electricity. In this work, we employed passivated silicon quantum dots (QDs) that directly originated from cheap silicon source towards photocatalytic organic synthesis, and ultimately drug molecular exploration. Herein, we demonstrate a mechanic way to synthesize photocatalytic active silicon QDs from bulk silicon by using High Energy Ball Milling (HEBM). The result passivated silicon QDs (～2-5 nm) show high chemical stability and moderate photoluminance (PL) with a broad range of emission. More importantly, the passivated silicon QDs show high catalytic activity and functional group tolerance towards 4+2 annulation of tertiary amine and N-Boc protected secondary amines. Depending upon these basis, Si QDs picture a promising way for photocatalytic synthesis of drug molecules, for instance, indolizidine alkaloid derived drugs and indole derived molecules. These finds suggest that our economical photocatalysts may bring insight towards organic photoredox synthesis.<br/>

Silicon for pharmaceutical molecule synthesis: Passivated Si quantum dots for 4 + 2 annulation of tertiary amine and N-Boc protected secondary amines

2019 Fall National Meeting

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.