(542a) Cuprous Oxide Nanoparticles As Efficient Heterogeneous Photocatalyst for C-C Coupling Reactions

Carbon-carbon (C-C) coupling reactions are a diverse set of reactions that are widely used throughout industry. For instance, cross coupling reactions make up 25% of all pharmaceutical reactions. They are also used for many advanced materials such as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and OLED materials. These reactions are conventionally catalyzed using homogenous palladium (Pd) complex-based homogenous catalysts. Pd is expensive, toxic and rare-earth element.

To overcome this limitation, we propose heterogeneous cuprous oxide (Cu₂O) nanocatalysts to drive C-C homo-couplings as well as cross-couplings under relatively mild conditions using visible-light as energy input. With Cu₂O photocatalyst, we show improved rate of reaction and stability at a lower temperature than previously seen with conventional Pd catalysts. Furthermore, with a combination of spectroscopic techniques such as electrospray ionization mass spectrometry, UV-Vis extinction spectroscopy, flame atomic absorption spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy, we demonstrate the stability of the catalyst as a function of time and temperature. The implications of this work is that Cu₂O can be an alternate catalyst for homogenous palladium.