Mechanochemical synthesis of a Li-K heterobimetallic electride and its versatile reactivity
Nathan Davison; Erli Lu Newcastle University, UK
Electride is a type of compound featuring free electrons as the anion 1 . As electron-rich materials, electrides could exhibit unusual physicochemical properties (such as electro-conductivity) underpinned by their electron density topologies 2 . So far, the reported electrides feature three types of electron density topologies: (1) zero-dimensional (0D) discrete cavities; (2) one-dimensional (1D) channels; (3) two-dimensional (2D) planes 3 . Recently, by employing mechanochemical ball milling, we synthesized the first electride with a three-dimensional (3D) helical electron density topology, namely [LiHMDS][K+][e-] (1) (HMDS: N(SiMe3)2). Moreover, beyond the intriguing structural features, 1 exhibited versatile reactivity, enabling the first transition-metal free facile benzene (C6H6) coupling reaction, and the first solvent-free facile Birch-type reductions. References 1. J. L. Dye, Electrides. Scientific American 257, 66-75 (1987). Doi: 10.2307/24979479. 2. J. L. Dye, Electrides: Early Examples of Quantum Confinement. Acc. Chem. Res. 42, 1564-1572 (2009). Doi: 10.1021/ ar9000857. 3. C. Liu, S. A. Nikolaev, W. Ren, L. A. Burton, Electrides: a review. J. Mater. Chem. C 8, 10551-10567 (2020). doi: 10.1039/ d0tc01165g.
P42
© The Author(s), 2022
Made with FlippingBook Learn more on our blog