Polyhedral Cu2O Crystals for Diverse Aryl Alkyne Hydroboration Reactions

Cu₂O cubes, octahedra, and rhombic dodecahedra have been used to examine facet-dependent catalytic activity in aryl alkyne hydroboration reactions. Although the reaction can proceed by using ethanol or other alcohols as solvent, the use of 1,4-dioxane gave the best product yield. All particle shapes gave exclusively the E-product, but the rhombic dodecahedra exposing {110} surfaces were consistently far more reactive than the other particle morphologies. A product yield of 99 % was achieved by using Cu₂O rhombic dodecahedra to catalyze the hydroboration of phenylacetylene at 60 °C for 5 h. The rhombic dodecahedra have been shown to catalyze a variety of substituted aryl alkynes, which demonstrates their potential as a versatile catalyst.