Abstract
Simple lanthanide cyclopentadienyl (Cp) complexes can photochemically cleave the sp3 carbon-chlorine bond of unactivated chlorinated hydrocarbons including polyvinyl chloride (PVC). The excited state lifetimes of these simple complexes are long (175 ns for (CpMe4)2CeCl) and the light absorption by the Cp ligand is efficient, so photocatalytic reactivity is enhanced for cerium and now also made possible for neighboring, normally photoinactive, lanthanide congeners.