The Jenkins Group published their work “A Benchtop Method for Appending Protic Functional Groups to N‐Heterocyclic Carbene Protected Gold Nanoparticles” in the highly-profiled journal Angewandte Chemie. Joseph DeJesus is the first author and recent PhD alumus from the Department of Chemistry’s program.
This piece explores the resilience of N‐heterocyclic carbene (NHC) gold bonds. They synthesize NHC‐functionalized gold surfaces from gold(I) NHC complexes and aqueous nanoparticles without the need for additional reagents, enabling otherwise difficult functional groups to be appended to the carbene.
The resilience of the NHC−Au bond allows for multi‐step post‐synthetic modification. “Beginning with the nitro‐NHC, we form an amine‐NHC terminated surface, which further undergoes amide coupling with carboxylic acids,” DeJesus said. “The simplicity of this approach, its compatibility with aqueous nanoparticle solutions, and its ability to yield protic functionality, greatly expands the potential of NHC‐functionalized noble metal surfaces.”