Light-based production of drug-discovery molecules

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells are widely studied for the conversion of solar energy into chemical fuels. They use photocathodes and photoanodes to "split" water into hydrogen and oxygen respectively. PEC cells can work under mild conditions with light, which makes them also suitable for other catalyzing reactions that turn organic molecules into high added-value chemicals, like those used to develop drugs. However, PEC cells have rarely been used in organic synthesis so far, except in some recent conceptual attempts that have tested only a handful of simple substrates. Overall, PEC cells remain largely unexplored for broad-scope synthetic methodologies of functional organic molecules. They could nevertheless prove most helpful in one of the most appealing synthetic methods for pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals, called "direct amination". It involves adding an amine group to an organic molecule without pre-activating the molecule by an additional processing step.