Wei-Yin Sun

Ligand-Promoted Rh(III)-Catalyzed Coupling of Aryl C–H Bonds with Arylboron Reagents

Rhodium(III)-catalyzed C-H arylation of arenes with phenylboronic acid pinacol esters has been achieved using a readily removable N-pentafluorophenylbenzamide directing group for the first time. The use of a bidentate phosphine ligand (Binap) significantly increased the yield of the cross-coupling of C-H bonds with organoboron reagents.

Efficient and Reusable Metal−Organic Framework Catalyst for Carboxylative Cyclization of Propargylamines with Carbon Dioxide

Carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and transformation are important for decreasing the concentration of atmospheric CO2. To effectively capture CO2 and further fix it into valuable chemical products, functionalized dynamic metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have been utilized not only because of their inherent cavity for accommodating CO2 but also owing to their reversible structural transformations in response to external stimuli for regulating the reaction. Herein, we report a dynamic and functional MOF [Cd3(L)2(BDC)3]2⋅16u2009DMF (MOF‐1u2009a; DMF=N,N‐dimethylformamide) achieved by reaction of the amino tripodal imidazole ligand N1‐(4‐(1u2009H‐imidazol‐1‐yl)benzyl)‐N1‐ (2‐aminoethyl)ethane‐1,2‐diamine (L) and 1,4‐benzenedicarboxylic acid (H2BDC) with cadmium salt. MOF‐1u2009a not only shows unprecedented high catalytic activity [initial turnover number (TON) up to 9300] and broad substrate scope for the carboxylative cyclization of propargylamines with CO2, but also can be switched on and off upon reversible structural transformation owing to its dynamic five‐fold interpenetrating structure. Further studies demonstrate that MOF‐1u2009a shows selective catalytic properties depending on the size of substrates, similarly to sophisticated biological systems.

Metal ion induced porous HKUST-1 nano/microcrystals with controllable morphology and size

Porous coordination polymer HKUST-1 [Cu3(BTC)2] (H3BTC = 1,3,5-benzenetricarbocylic acid) nano/microcrystals have been fabricated by an environment friendly facile direct precipitation method at room temperature using inorganic salts such as NaNO3, NaCl, NaBr, KNO3, KCl and KBr as additives. It is found that the concentration of the inorganic salt has an important impact on the morphology and size of the HKUST-1 crystals, and their morphology changed from cube to cuboctahedron and finally to octahedron by increasing the concentration of inorganic salts. Gas adsorption measurements reveal that HKUST-1 nano/microcrystals with different morphologies show high specific surface areas, and their gas sorption properties depend on the crystal morphology and size.