Here we report the use of 10-phenylphenothiazine (PTH) as an inexpensive, highly reducing metal-free photocatalyst for the reduction of carbon-halogen bonds via the trapping of carbon-centered radical intermediates with a mild hydrogen atom donor. Dehalogenations were carried out on various substrates with excellent yields at room temperature in the presence of air.

Despite the number of methods available for dehalogenation and carbon-carbon bond formation using aryl halides, strategies that provide chemoselectivity for systems bearing multiple carbon-halogen bonds are still needed. Herein, we report the ability to tune the reduction potential of metal-free phenothiazine-based photoredox catalysts and demonstrate the application of these catalysts for chemoselective carbon-halogen bond activation to achieve C-C cross-coupling reactions as well as reductive dehalogenations. This procedure works both for conjugated polyhalides as well as unconjugated substrates. We further illustrate the usefulness of this protocol by intramolecular cyclization of a pyrrole substrate, an advanced building block for a family of natural products known to exhibit biological activity.