Despite
the numerous applications of eosin Y as an organic photoredox
catalyst, substantial mechanistic aspects of the photoredox process
have remained elusive. Through deductive, steady-state kinetic studies,
we first propose a mechanism for alkaline, aqueous photoredox catalysis
using eosin Y, triethanolamine, and oxygen, integrating photo- and
nonphotochemical steps. The photoredox cycle begins with a single-electron
transfer (SET) induced when eosin Y absorbs green light. This photoinduced
SET leads to the formation of a metastable radical trianion that can
be fully reduced to inactivated leuco eosin Y via H+/e–/H+ transfer or regenerated to eosin Y via
ground-state SET to oxygen. Since the radical trianion absorbs violet
light, we tested the effect of radical trianion photoexcitation on
catalyst regeneration. We found that excitation of the metastable
radical trianion in the presence of a threshold concentration of oxygen
enabled ∼100% regeneration of eosin Y. The response to violet
light supports the important role of the metastable radical trianion
and indicates that the photoredox cycle can be closed via a secondary
photoinduced SET event. The idea of photoredox cycles with two consecutive
photoinduced electron transfer (PET) steps is not intuitive and is
introduced as a tool to increase photocatalyst turnover by selectively
favoring regeneration over “death”. This alludes to
the Z-scheme in biological photosynthesis, where multiple PET reactions,
often triggered by different frequencies, promote highly selective
biochemical transformations by precluding unproductive SET events
in plants and bacteria. We expect that the simple Z-scheme model introduced
here will enable more efficient use of organic photoredox catalysts
in organic and materials chemistry.