The Road to Bisacyldigermanes: A New Compound Class Suitable as Visible Light Photoinitiators

In this contribution we present a novel synthetic procedure towards a variety of bisacyldigermanes via the Corey-Seebach approach. All isolated compounds were characterized by NMR spectroscopy, mass spectrometry and X-ray crystallography. The target compounds were further analyzed via UV/Vis absorption spectroscopy and their longest wavelength absorptions were assigned by DFT calculations. Moreover, we determined the activity of our new photoinitiators by photolysis experiments (photobleaching). Additionally, CIDNP spectra confirmed the radical pathway of the investigated compounds.