Issue 27, 2023

Direct mechanocatalysis by resonant acoustic mixing (RAM)

Abstract

We demonstrate the use of a metal surface to directly catalyse copper-catalysed alkyne–azide click-coupling (CuAAC) reactions under the conditions of Resonant Acoustic Mixing (RAM) – a recently introduced and scalable mechanochemical methodology that uniquely eliminates the need for bulk solvent, as well as milling media. By using a simple copper coil as a catalyst, this work shows that direct mechanocatalysis can occur in an impact-free environment, relying solely on high-speed mixing of reagents against a metal surface, without the need for specially designed milling containers and media. By introducing an experimental setup that enables real-time Raman spectroscopy monitoring of RAM processes, we demonstrate 0th-order reaction kinetics for several selected CuAAC reactions, supporting surface-based catalysis. The herein presented RAM-based direct mechanocatalysis methodology is simple, enables the effective one-pot, two-step synthesis of triazoles via a combination of benzyl azide formation and CuAAC reactions on a wide scope of reagents, provides control over reaction stoichiometry that is herein shown to be superior to that seen in solution or by using more conventional CuCl catalyst, and is applied for simple gram-scale synthesis of the anticonvulsant drug Rufinamide.

Graphical abstract: Direct mechanocatalysis by resonant acoustic mixing (RAM)

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
27 3 2023
Accepted
17 5 2023
First published
18 5 2023
This article is Open Access

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

Chem. Sci., 2023,14, 7475-7481

Direct mechanocatalysis by resonant acoustic mixing (RAM)

C. B. Lennox, T. H. Borchers, L. Gonnet, C. J. Barrett, S. G. Koenig, K. Nagapudi and T. Friščić, Chem. Sci., 2023, 14, 7475 DOI: 10.1039/D3SC01591B

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