Issue 28, 2021

Glass surface as strong base, ‘green’ heterogeneous catalyst and degradation reagent

Abstract

Systematic screening of accelerated chemical reactions at solid/solution interfaces has been carried out in high-throughput fashion using desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry and it provides evidence that glass surfaces accelerate various base-catalyzed chemical reactions. The reaction types include elimination, solvolysis, condensation and oxidation, whether or not the substrates are pre-charged. In a detailed mechanistic study, we provide evidence using nanoESI showing that glass surfaces can act as strong bases and convert protic solvents into their conjugate bases which then act as bases/nucleophiles when participating in chemical reactions. In aprotic solvents such as acetonitrile, glass surfaces act as ‘green’ heterogeneous catalysts that can be recovered and reused after simple rinsing. Besides their use in organic reaction catalysis, glass surfaces are also found to act as degradation reagents for phospholipids with increasing extents of degradation occurring at low concentrations. This finding suggests that the storage of base/nucleophile-labile compounds or lipids in glass containers should be avoided.

Graphical abstract: Glass surface as strong base, ‘green’ heterogeneous catalyst and degradation reagent

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
17 May 2021
Accepted
23 Jun 2021
First published
23 Jun 2021
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2021,12, 9816-9822

Glass surface as strong base, ‘green’ heterogeneous catalyst and degradation reagent

Y. Li, K. Huang, N. M. Morato and R. G. Cooks, Chem. Sci., 2021, 12, 9816 DOI: 10.1039/D1SC02708E

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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