Recent advances in visible light-mediated chemical transformations of enaminones

Enaminones, which possesses both the nucleophilic enamine as well as electrophilic enone structures, are well known versatile building blocks in organic synthesis. Meanwhile, visible light-mediated reactions have emerged as useful synthetic strategy with enhanced sustainability. Around the last decade, various photochemical transformations of enaminones have been developed to construct cyclic or acyclic compounds. In this review, we describe the recent advances in visible light-mediated chemical transformations of enaminones. Detailed discussion on the reaction mechanism of the related reactions is given to provide guide to the reader. Finally, a summary on the existing challenges and the future outlook towards the development of practical photocatalytic reactions of enaminones is also presented.