Citation:

Kou, J., A. Saha, C. Bennett-Stamper, AND R. S. VARMA. Inside-out Core–shell Architecture: Controllable Fabrication of Cu2O@Cu with High Activity for the Sonogashira Coupling Reaction . CHEMICAL COMMUNICATIONS. Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, Uk, 48(47):5862-5864, (2012).

Impact/Purpose:

To inform the public

Description:

As low-cost and versatile materials, Cu and its oxides have attracted great interest due to their excellent performance in the field of catalysis, superconductivity, photovoltaics, magnetic storage, electrochemistry, and biosensing. It is well known that morphology has an important effect on both physical and chemical properties; therefore, much attention has been paid to controllable construction of materials. Among various morphologies, coreshell structures are of significant interest owing to their unique architecture, bifunctional characteristics, and enhanced activity. In general, sacrificial template-directed chemical transformation, based on the Kirkendall effect, is an effective approach to fabricate core-shell structures. This method, in combination with oxidative reactions of Cu, has been widely used to generate coreshell structure with Cu core and Cu2O shell (Cu@Cu2O). However, in contrast to oxidization that can be easily realized by various methods, the light transition metal Cu is difficult to obtain via the reduction of Cu oxides in solution. As a result, it is a challenging task to fabricate the structure with Cu2O core and Cu shell (Cu2O@Cu), the opposite construction to the usual Cu@Cu2O core-shell structure. So far, literature reporting the successful synthesis of such a structure is very scarce, if any. Actually, in many cases Cu is expected to play a vital role as a shell because of its high activity in diverse reactions. Hence, the fabrication of Cu2O@Cu core-shell nanoarchitectures is extremely desirable from both an academic and a practical point of view.

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