Pure and Applied Chemistry

Abstract: The photochemical liberation of functional groups is an attractive alternative to the traditional chemical approach. Several photolabile protecting groups have been developed in the past decades, but they were mainly designed to protect amines and carboxylic acids. In this account, we present some of our recent work on the photochemical release of other functions, such as silanols, aldehydes, and ketones. We also describe a new form of differentiation among several photolabile groups by the use of monochromatic light tuned to each of them: the chromatic orthogonality.