The participation of sunlight in the natural chemistry of the earth is presented as a unique field of study, from historical observations to prospects for future inquiry. A compilation of known reactions shows the extent of light-driven interactions between naturally occurring components of land, air, and water, and provides the backdrop for an outline of the mechanisms of these phenomena. Cata...

Photochemical reactions may be classified as adiabatic or as diabatic whether the chemical change occurs on the same potential energy surface or not. In the adiabatic cases deexcitation occurs either in the reactant (I) or in the product (II) while in the diabatic case it occurs in between them (III). The potential energy surfaces of polyatomic systems are discussed in relation to photochemistr...

Chemical kinetics plays an important role in controlling the atmospheric composition of all planetary atmospheres, including those of extrasolar planets. For the hottest exoplanets, the composition can closely follow thermochemical-equilibrium predictions, at least in the visible and infrared photosphere at dayside (eclipse) conditions. However, for atmospheric temperatures approximately <2000K...

The development of more active C-H oxidation catalysts has inspired a rapid, scalable, and stereoselective assembly of multifunctional piperazines through a [3+3] coupling of azomethine ylides. A combination of visible-light irradiation and aluminum organometallics is essential to promote this transformation, which introduces visible-light photochemistry of main-group organometallics and sets t...

The synthesis of several symmetrically 4,4''-functionalized 2,2':6',2''-terpyridines is reported. In addition to the biscarboxylic acid 4,4''-tpy(CO₂H)₂ (3), the anthryl esters 4,4''-tpy(CO₂CH₂Anth) ₂(5a) and 4,4''-tpy(CO₂CH₂CH₂OAnth)₂ (5b) were synthesized. Furthermore, both anthryl esters were used to synthesize symmetric iron(II)-bis(terpyridine)complexes 6a-b. Irradiation experiments were c...

The classic text book in photochemistry is that of Noyes and Leighton, The Photochemistry of Gases published in 1941. In 1966, a comprehensive volume by Calvert and Pitts brought the field up to date, but it soon became obvious that the field of photochemistry was expanding too rapidly to be covered in a single comprehensive volume. In fact, in the latter part of the 20th century organic photoc...