Peroxygenases offer attractive means to address challenges in selective oxyfunctionalisation chemistry. Despite their attractiveness, the application of peroxygenases in synthetic chemistry remains challenging due to their facile inactivation by the stoichiometric oxidant (H2O2). Often atom inefficient peroxide generation systems are required, which show little potential for large scale implementation. Here we show that visible light-driven, catalytic water oxidation can be used for in situ generation of H2O2 from water, rendering the peroxygenase catalytically active. In this way the stereoselective oxyfunctionalisation of hydrocarbons can be achieved by simply using the catalytic system, water and visible light.

A recently discovered photodecarboxylase from Chlorella variabilis NC64A (CvFAP) bears the promise for the efficient and selective synthesis of hydrocarbons from carboxylic acids. CvFAP, however, exhibits a clear preference for long-chain fatty acids thereby limiting its broad applicability. In this contribution, we demonstrate that the decoy molecule approach enables conversion of a broad range of carboxylic acids by filling up the vacant substrate access channel of the photodecarboxylase. These results not only demonstrate a practical application of a unique, photoactivated enzyme but also pave the way to selective production of short-chain alkanes from waste carboxylic acids under mild reaction conditions.

In nature, enzymes conventionally operate under aqueous conditions. Because of this, aqueous buffers are often the choice for reaction media when enzymes are applied in chemical synthesis. However, to meet...

Peroxygenases are very interesting catalysts for specific oxyfunctionalization chemistry. Instead of relying on complicated electron transport chains, they rely on simple hydrogen peroxide as the stoichiometric oxidant. Their poor robustness against H 2 O 2 can be addressed via in situ generation of H 2 O 2 . Here we report that simple graphitic carbon nitride (g-C 3 N 4 ) is a promising photocatalyst to drive peroxygenase-catalyzed hydroxylation reactions. The system has been characterized by outlining not only its scope but also its current limitations. In particular, spatial separation of the photocatalyst from the enzyme is shown as a solution to circumvent the undesired inactivation of the biocatalyst. Overall, very promising turnover numbers of the biocatalyst of more than 60.000 have been achieved.

An increasing number of biocatalytic oxidation reactions rely on H 2 O 2 as a clean oxidant. The poor robustness of most enzymes towards H 2 O 2 , however, necessitates more efficient systems for in situ H 2 O 2 generation. In analogy to the well‐known formate dehydrogenase to promote NADH‐dependent reactions, we here propose employing formate oxidase (FOx) to promote H 2 O 2 ‐dependent enzymatic oxidation reactions. Even under non‐optimised conditions, high turnover numbers for coupled FOx/peroxygenase catalysis were achieved.