A radical cascade cyclization strategy has been developed to provide a direct route to access 3-acylbenzothiophenes from simple chemical feedstocks.

A visible-light-promoted aerobic oxidative hydroxylation of boronic acids using phthalocyanine zinc as an easily available photosensitizer has been developed. It provided a direct access to synthesize aliphatic alcohols and phenols from boronic acids. The advantages of this approach included the low catalyst loading (0.5 mol%), high efficient, the use of O 2 as an oxygen source, wide substrate range, the simple operational process, and mild conditions.