Angewandte
Chemie
nano-size effect of the gold. This effect can easily be ruled out
with our catalysts since, although the gold particles supported
on TiO2, Fe2O3, carbon, ZrO2, and CeO2 supports are similar
in size (2–5 nm; see Figure S1 and Table S1 in the Supporting
Information), their catalytic activity is quite different. It must
therefore be concluded that there is no direct correlation
between the size of the gold particles of the supported
catalysts and the activity observed for the A3 coupling
reaction. This conclusion agrees very well with the work of
Kidwai et al.,[12a] who found that unsupported gold nano-
particles with average sizes of 10, 20, or 30 nm gave very
similar conversions (approx. 90%).
In an attempt to explain the catalytic activity of the
different supported gold catalysts, we considered that cationic
gold could be the active species, as is the case with
homogeneous gold catalysis. If this is so, and taking into
account that XPS, FTIR, and EXAFS studies and theoretical
calculations have indicated that cationic gold species can be
stabilized on CeO2[5,13] and ZrO2[14,15] but not on silica, carbon
(NaBH4 reduction of a gold precursor), or the gold reference
catalysts (calcination at 4008C in air results in the reduction of
cationic gold species to the metal),[16] it can be assumed that
the high catalytic activity observed for Au/ZrO2 and Au/CeO2
is due to the presence of positively charged gold species.
To check the validity of this assumption, we prepared a
series of Au/CeO2 and Au/ZrO2 samples in which the AuIII/
AuT (AuT: total amount of gold) and AuI/AuT ratios were
varied by reducing the sample with H2 at 100 and 3008C for
3 h, respectively. The results, which are presented in Figure 1a
and Table S2 in the Supporting Information, show a direct
correlation between the concentration of AuIII species and the
catalytic activity; no clear correlation was found between the
catalytic activity and the concentration of AuI or Au0
(Table S2). Although it is not possible to discard some
catalysis by AuI and Au0, their catalytic activity should be
much lower than that of AuIII.
benzaldehyde conversion increases continuously up to 99%
with Au/CeO2 over 12 h. This result indicates that AuCl3 is
deactivated in the first 2 h and is decomposed or reduced into
metallic gold,[2b,c,3] whereas no significant deactivation of Au/
CeO2 is found. The turnover frequencies (TOFs) calculated
on the basis of total gold (1645 hÀ1) and AuIII ions (5674 hÀ1)
are significantly higher than that of AuCl3 (635 hÀ1) when
working at low levels of benzaldehyde conversion (ꢀ 31% at
0.17 h); the maximum TONs calculated on the basis of total
gold (3120) and AuIII ions (10760) of Au/CeO2 are one and
two orders of magnitude higher than that of AuCl3 (273),
respectively (see Table S3). Although 100% conversion has
also been reported with much larger amounts of AuBr3 under
similar reaction conditions,[9a] our results indicate that the
TON and TOF obtained with Au/ZrO2 and Au/CeO2 are
much higher than those of gold salts/complexes, copper/silver
salts, and others (TON ꢀ 100).[9–11] It has also been reported
that unsupported Au and Ag nanoparticles (TON ꢀ 10),[12a,b]
gold on layered double hydroxide (LDH-AuCl4, TON ꢀ 33),[6]
or hydroxyapatite-supported Cu (TON ꢀ 8)[12c] are active
catalysts for the A3 coupling reaction. However, the results
presented above clearly show that the activity of our Au/ZrO2
and Au/CeO2 catalysts is two orders of magnitude higher than
those of these previously reported solid catalysts.[6,12]
It should be noted that these Au/ZrO2 and Au/CeO2
catalysts can work in a variety of organic solvents (methanol
and tetrahydrofuran), where they lead to more than 80%
conversion. Nevertheless, the reaction in water is very clean
and this is the solvent of choice. In contrast to homogeneous
gold, silver, copper, or unsupported Au nanoparticles,[9–12] Au/
CeO2 and Au/ZrO2 do not require an inert atmosphere.
To examine the scope of the A3 coupling reaction with Au/
CeO2 and Au/ZrO2, we extended our studies to different
combinations of aldehydes, amines, and alkynes. As depicted
in Table 2, aromatic aldehydes give excellent yields in the A3
coupling reaction (entries 1–7). Benzaldehydes with electron-
donating groups react smoothly (entries 2–4), while substitu-
tion of electron-withdrawing groups on the benzene ring
decreases the reactivity (entries 5–7). High yields are still
generally obtained in the latter case except for with 4-
nitrobenzaldehyde, which contains a strongly electron-with-
drawing group (entry 8), although longer reaction times are
needed. Notably, aliphatic aldehydes such as cyclohexanecar-
boxaldehyde, butylaldehyde, and octylaldehyde also display
very high activity, with yields of 99, 85, and 95%, respectively
(entries 9–11). While unwanted trimerization of aliphatic
aldehydes is a major limitation of the A3 coupling reactions
catalyzed by homogeneous catalysts,[9–11] no trimer could be
detected with the supported gold catalyst.
Considering that AuIII is the most active catalytic species
when the A3 coupling reaction is carried out in a homoge-
neous phase, we compared the catalytic activity of Au/CeO2
and AuCl3 under the same reaction conditions. It can be seen
from Figure 1b and Table S3 that benzaldehyde conversion
with AuCl3 is higher than with Au/CeO2 in the first 2 h and the
maximum conversion (80%) is obtained at 2 h, while
The reaction with secondary amines proceeded smoothly
to afford the corresponding propargylamines (Table 2,
entries 12–15). The reactions with piperidine and pyrrolidine
resulted in complete benzaldehyde conversion with a yield
higher than 99%. The A3 coupling reactions with chiral
amines were also successful, with yields of more than 97%
and excellent diastereoselectivities (up to 99:1) obtained with
(S)-(+)-2-pyrrolidinemethanol and (S)-(+)-2-(methoxyme-
thyl)pyrrolidine (entries 16–18). (S)-(+)-2-methylpiperidine
afforded up to 87% yield with good diastereoselectivity
III
T
~
Figure 1. A) Correlation between the Au /Au ratio of Au/CeO2 ( ) and
&
Au/ZrO2 ( ) and the TON calculated on the basis of total gold.
b) Comparison of the catalytic activity of AuCl3 ( ) and Au/CeO2 (&)
catalysts under identical reaction conditions (benzaldehyde
(2.0 mmol), piperidine (2.4 mmol), and phenylacetylene (2.6 mmol),
H2O (1.0 mL), 1008C; Au/CeO2: 5 mg; AuCl3: 1.8 mg).
*
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2008, 47, 4358 –4361
ꢀ 2008 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
4359