Recent examples of sustainable acylations by photogenerated acyl/alkoxycarbonyl/carbamoyl radicals have been discussed in this article.

The construction of aromatic rings has become a key objective for organic chemists. While several strategies have been developed for the functionalization of pre-formed aromatic rings, the direct construction of an aromatic core starting from polyunsaturated systems is yet a less explored field. The potential of such reactions in the formation of aromatics increased at a regular pace in the last few years. Nowadays, there are reliable and well-established procedures to prepare polyenic derivatives, such as dienynes, enediynes, enyne-allenes and hetero-analogues. This has stimulated their use in the development of innovative cycloaromatizations. Different examples have recently emerged, suggesting large potential of this strategy in the preparation of (hetero)aromatics. Accordingly, this review highlights the recent advancements in this field and describes the different conditions exploited to trigger the process, including thermal and photochemical activation, as well as the use of transition metal catalysis and the addition of electrophiles/nucleophiles or radical species.

A DFT investigation on the conditions required for the photochemical generation of triplet aryl cations from differently para-substituted aryl halides has been carried out. The results showed a correlation between the energy change associated with the Ar-X bond heterolytic cleavage and the substituent Hammett-Brown constant (σ p + ). The method provides a means to predict the viability of the ArS N 1 photosubstitution reaction.

The irradiation in protic solvents of 4-chloroalkylbenzenes and 4-chlorophenyltrimethylsilane caused the heterolytic cleavage of aryl-chlorine bonds to give the corresponding triplet phenyl cations. These were exploited for transition-metal-free arylation reactions under mild conditions to give allylbenzenes, γ-benzyl lactones, 3-arylacetals (ketals), and biaryls in moderate to good yields. The path followed was supported by DFT calculations at the UB3LYP/6-311+G(2d,p) level.

A protocol for the preparation of substituted triarylethylenes (TAEs) was developed by using arylazo sulfones as substrates in the presence of 1,1‐diarylethylenes. The process took place efficiently in the absence of any (photo)catalyst upon exposure of the reaction mixture to (simulated) sunlight.