A facile method to fabricate Cu0 supported on nanofibers as efficient catalyst using N-arylation reactions

Glucose was dispersed in polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofibers to develop a novel supporter for reducing and anchoring Cu0 by hydrothermal process. The newly developed catalyst was characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and amorphous Cu0 were obtained. The prepared Cu0 nanocatalyst was investigated as a heterogeneous catalyst for N-arylation reaction of N-heterocyclic compounds and a wide range of aryl iodides including iodobenzene, electron-rich and electron-poor aryl iodides, which performed excellent catalytic activity.