Interfacial effects of the CuO/GO composite to mediate the side reactions of N,N-dimethylformamide fragments

The interface between nanocatalysts and graphene oxide (GO) has been found to play a crucial role in enhancing the catalytic activity and improving the selectivity of amination reactions in N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF). The composite catalysts of CuO/GO used for the catalytic coupling of aryl halides with amines in DMF can completely inhibit the side reaction between the aryl halides and fragments of DMF. With identical amounts of Cu-catalysts, the conversion of iodobenzene and the selectivity for the target product reached 100% when CuO/GO composite catalysts were employed, while these results were 70.3 and 42.8%, respectively, when CuO catalysts were used alone. Experimental evidence confirms that the interfacial effect of CuO/GO is the origination of the improved performance of composite catalysts, which has been found to efficiently transfer fragments of DMF to GO and avoid unexpected side reactions during the catalytic process.