First Report on the Synthesis of Polyfluoroarenes through C-H bond Activation by Nanoparticles Catalysts----Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter Chinese Academy of Sciences

Synthesis of biaryl compounds through C-H bond activation of arylation has been the focus and frontier research in the field of green chemistry and pharmaceutical synthesis. Traditional homogeneous catalysts have made great achievements in this field.

However, there are many issues to resolve, such as the large amount of catalysts dose, recycle problem of catalysts, and product isolation problems. Moreover, the catalytic process generally requires relatively harsh dry environments, which increases the cost of large-scale synthesis and causes environmental pollution.

Prof. CAO Rong and his colleagues at Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter (FJIRSM), Chinese Academy of Sciences, has made important progress in synthesis of biaryl compounds through direct C-H bond activation of arylation fluoride recently. The research group succeeded in synthesizing uniformly dispersed Pd nanocomposite with sub-5 nm in size by using cucurbit[n]uril as a carrier via a simple one-pot method.

With significantly noble metal loading, such nanocomposite showed high activity towards C-H bond activation with satisfactory yields of the product. The catalytic procedure was safe to air and moisture. Importantly, the developed catalytic system can be effectively recycled multiple times without obvious loss of activity with a broad range of substrates, demonstrating a good efficiency and selectivity.

The research group also studied the effect of different type of cucurbit[n]uril (n=5-8) on the structure of Pd nanocomposite as well as the corresponding catalytic performance. The heterogeneous catalytic mechanism of the C-H bond activation was also verified by experimental data. It is worth noting that it is the first report on the synthesis of polyfluoroarenes through C-H bond activation by nanoparticles catalysts. Such catalytic system demonstrates a good prospect for the practical application. (J. Catal., 2015，321，62-69)