Green dehydrogenation of dimethylamine borane catalyzed by cheaply copper(0) nanocatalysts without any stabilizer at nearly room temperature.

In this work, the findings of the work on the green dehydrogenation behavior of molten dimethylamine borane (DMAB) catalyzed by the precatalyst copper(II) acetylacetonate (Cu(acac)2) in solvent-free medium (green) at near room temperature (nRT, 30.0+0.1°C) were reported. Herein, a complete study has been presented, which includes the following steps: (i) synthesis and catalytic activity of Cu(0) NCats in solvent-free medium, (ii) determination of activation energy for Cu(0) NCats catalyzed green dehydrogenation of DMAB, (iii) demonstration of catalytic lifetime of Cu(0) NCats, (iv) test of isolability and reusability of Cu(0) NCats, (v) poisoning experiments using carbon disulfide on a per-active-copper-atom basis, (vii) characterization of Cu(0) NCats by UV-vis, XRD, XPS and TEM/HRTEM/TEM-EDX spectroscopies. In addition, ATR-FTIR and 11B NMR techniques were use to characterize the cyclic aminoborane product obtained as a result of dehydrogenation of dimethylamine-borane.