Bioinspired synthesis of well faceted CuInanostructures and evaluation of their catalytic performance for coupling reactions

Abstract

Well faceted CuI, truncated tetrahedral nanocrystals, were fabricated by an ascorbic acid-assisted green strategy at room temperature in a short period of time. A possible growth mechanism of such highly faceted nanostructures based on typical biomolecule-crystal interactions in aqueous solution is tentatively proposed. The large surface area and rich exposed active sites are expected to endow such truncated tetrahedral nanostructures with excellent performances in catalysis, as demonstrated here for the remarkable catalytic activity with respect to the coupling reaction between benzylamine and iodobenzene. This interesting result highlights the advantage of such a CuI nanostructure over the bulk counterpart, i.e. the high density of active sites and large specific surface area, which places a solid foundation for the feasible and promising application of such highly faceted nanomaterials in catalysis. It is the first report on the nanometre-sized faceted CuI acting as a catalyst for a coupling reaction and simultaneously a good example for the combination of green chemistry and functional materials.