77557-08-5Relevant academic research and scientific papers
N-Heterocyclic Carbenes Reduce and Functionalize Copper Oxide Surfaces in One Pot
Veinot, Alex J.,Al-Rashed, Abrar,Padmos, J. Daniel,Singh, Ishwar,Lee, Dianne S.,Narouz, Mina R.,Lummis, Paul A.,Baddeley, Christopher J.,Crudden, Cathleen M.,Horton, J. Hugh
, p. 11431 - 11434 (2020)
Benzimidazolium hydrogen carbonate salts have been shown to act as N-heterocyclic carbene precursors, which can remove oxide from copper oxide surfaces and functionalize the resulting metallic surfaces in a single pot. Both the surfaces and the etching products were fully characterized by spectroscopic methods. Analysis of surfaces before and after NHC treatment by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy demonstrates the complete removal of copper(II) oxide. By using 13C-labelling, we determined that the products of this transformation include a cyclic urea, a ring-opened formamide and a bis-carbene copper(I) complex. These results illustrate the potential of NHCs to functionalize a much broader class of metals, including those prone to oxidation, greatly facilitating the preparation of NHC-based films on metals other than gold.
