Nanometric‐Thick Metal‐Free h‐Boron Nitride/Graphene Films as Base Catalyst for the Synthesis of Benzoxazoles

Abstract

Catalysts are frequently used as pelletized powdered materials, but rarely as thin films. The present work reports the use of 2D h-boron nitride on few layers defective graphene (h-BN/fl-G) films of about 10 nm thickness as base catalyst for the synthesis of benzoxazoles by coupling a 2-amino-phenol with p-substituted benzaldehydes. The synthesis of benzoxazole derivatives has aroused much interest in the last decades due to their application as potent anticancer agents against MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells. The results demonstrate that these nanometer-thick films exhibit three orders of magnitude higher activity than K 2 CO 3 taken as benchmark base catalyst. The activity and selectivity of h-BN/fl-G films depend on the nature of substituents on benzaldehyde, the solvent and reaction temperature.

Advances in the synthetic strategies of benzoxazoles using 2-aminophenol as a precursor: an up-to-date review

“…Thin-layered nano h-BN/fl-G films were prepared and applied as an active catalyst to the synthesis of benzoxazole derivatives ( 3 ) by Rendón-Patiño and co-authors. 46 The coupling of 2-aminophenol ( 1 ) and p -substituted benzaldehyde ( 2 ) in water/ p -xylene at 70 °C showed a low yield of the desired product. The authors further devised an experiment for the reusability of the catalyst for 5 sequential cycles.…”

Heterostructure Engineering of 2D Superlattice Materials for Electrocatalysis

“…[ 166 ] For the 2D materials with weak interlayer bond force (e.g., graphene), [ 167 ] a top‐down approach is more suitable. [ 101 ] Single dispersed 2D monolayer nanosheets can be obtained by exfoliating the bulk materials, and then the corresponding superlattice materials can be obtained through layer‐by‐layer (LBL) assembly [ 139 , 151 , 157 , 164 , 168 , 169 ] or flocculation precipitation method. [ 81 , 82 , 99 , 100 , 101 , 104 , 105 , 110 , 140 , 145 , 146 , 149 , 150 , 155 , 170 ] For the 2D materials with strong interlayer bond force (e.g., TMDs), a bottom‐up approach can reach high‐quality 2D superlattice structures.…”