GO and RGO doped metals: new MORAL materials for catalytical applications

Metal ORganic Alloys (MORALs) are a class of materials composed by organic molecules embedded in a metal structure. The chemical reduction of metal salts in the presence of graphene oxide (GO) suspension led us to the obtaining of GO doped metal dusts (GO@metal). The subsequential reduction of embedded GO using thiophene in order to obtain reduced graphene oxide (RGO) allowed a further modification of the materials to achieve RGO@metal. These materials have been characterized by different analytic techniques such as TEM microscopy, XRPD, XPS and FT-IR, proving the coexistence of metal nanoparticles together with graphene oxide1. Tested in different reactions, their catalytical activity emerged particularly in the nitro-group reduction2 and Suzuki-type C-C cross coupling. The incorporation of GO and RGO in the metals has given the materials greater stability as catalysts in subsequential reaction runs and improved conversion when compared to the undoped metals obtained following the same protocol.