Effect of size of copper nanoparticles on its catalytic behaviour in Ullman reaction

The condensation of iodobenzene to biphenyl is an industrially important reaction due to its significant role in organic synthesis as drug intermediates. The reaction takes place in the presence of copper powder as catalyst. We have shown in this paper that the size of the copper nanoparticles as well as its exposed surface area is responsible for the yield of chemical reaction. The uncapped copper powder showed a 43% conversion of iodobenzene to biphenyl in 5 h under our experimental conditions. Same amount of copper nanoparticles (size, similar to 66 nm diameter) prepared by citrate capping showed 88% conversion of iodobenzene to biphenyl, which increased to about 95% when 8 nm diameter capped copper nanoparticles are used. Surprisingly, 5 nm size copper nanoparticles showed no change in the yield of about 95%.