Presolski Stanislav, Pumera Martin
Division of Science, Yale-NUS College, 16 College Ave West, Singapore, 138527, Singapore.
Center for Advanced Functional Nanorobots, Department of Inorganic Chemistry, Faculty of Chemical Technology, University of Chemistry and Technology Prague, Prague, 6, Czech Republic.
Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2018 Dec 17;57(51):16713-16715. doi: 10.1002/anie.201809979. Epub 2018 Nov 16.
Metal-free heterogeneous carbon-based materials have the potential to facilitate a wide range of organic transformations in an economical and environmentally-friendly manner. However, the mechanism of their action is often obfuscated by their ill-defined nature, so careful analysis of the reaction products is essential before they can be labelled "catalysts" in accordance with the IUPAC definition. We present here our findings on the archetypal "carbocatalytic" conversion of benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde, in which graphene oxide is reduced and a major side product, dibenzyl ether, is also formed. Thus, our work reclassifies graphene oxide as a reagent and presents an important step in the proper evaluation of reactions in the nascent field of carbocatalysis.
无金属多相碳基材料有潜力以经济且环保的方式促进多种有机转化反应。然而，由于其性质不明确，它们的作用机制常常模糊不清，因此，在根据国际纯粹与应用化学联合会（IUPAC）的定义将它们标记为“催化剂”之前，仔细分析反应产物至关重要。我们在此展示了关于苄醇向苯甲醛的典型“碳催化”转化的研究结果，在此过程中氧化石墨烯被还原，同时还形成了一种主要副产物二苄基醚。因此，我们的工作将氧化石墨烯重新归类为一种试剂，并为碳催化这一新兴领域中反应的正确评估迈出了重要一步。
