Isolation of a copper photocatalyst on a metal-organic cage for the sulfonylation of aryl halides resulting from visible-light-mediated C(sp 2 )-S cross-coupling.

A Ce-based metal-organic tetrahedron was assembled for preserving the uncoordinated nature of 2,2'-bipyridyl groups to form a Cu-based photocatalyst, which protected Cu I centers from intermolecular deactivation and showed high photocatalytic activity for the visible-light-mediated C(sp²)-S cross-coupling.