UW-Madison catalyst ejects free electrons into solvent, altering photoredox selectivity in Nature study

Chemists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with collaborators at Colorado State University and the University of Colorado Boulder, report in Nature a catalyst that releases an electron directly into solution rather than handing it to the molecule that is easiest to reduce, ScienceDaily reported. Professor Zachary Wickens said the catalyst ejects the electron into solvent, creating a strong reductant because a free electron will enter almost any molecule rather than remain alone in solution. That can reverse the usual single-electron transfer preference that has limited coupling routes for decades. Colorado collaborators analyzed why the selectivity pattern differs from conventional photoredox design. The work was reported under the title Selectivity Emerges from Indiscriminate Photoreduction, with DOI 10.1038/s41586-026-10897-7.