On-Surface Hydrogen-Induced Covalent Coupling of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons via a Superhydrogenated Intermediate
The activation, hydrogenation, and covalent coupling of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are processes of great importance in fields like chemistry, energy, biology, or health, among others. So far, they are based on the use of catalysts which drive and increase the efficiency of the thermall...
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Published in | Journal of the American Chemical Society Vol. 141; no. 8; pp. 3550 - 3557 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
American Chemical Society
27.02.2019
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Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | The activation, hydrogenation, and covalent coupling of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are processes of great importance in fields like chemistry, energy, biology, or health, among others. So far, they are based on the use of catalysts which drive and increase the efficiency of the thermally- or light-induced reaction. Here, we report on the catalyst-free covalent coupling of nonfunctionalized PAHs adsorbed on a relatively inert surface in the presence of atomic hydrogen. The underlying mechanism has been characterized by high-resolution scanning tunnelling microscopy and rationalized by density functional theory calculations. It is based on the formation of intermediate radical-like species upon hydrogen-induced molecular superhydrogenation which favors the covalent binding of PAHs in a thermally activated process, resulting in large coupled molecular nanostructures. The mechanism proposed in this work opens a door toward the direct formation of covalent, PAH-based, bottom-up synthesized nanoarchitectures on technologically relevant inert surfaces. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0002-7863 1520-5126 1520-5126 |
DOI: | 10.1021/jacs.8b12239 |