Instantaneous Click Chemistry by a Copper-Containing Polymeric-Membrane-Installed Microflow Catalytic Reactor

The copper(I)-catalyzed Huisgen cycloaddition (azide-alkyne cycloaddition) is an important reaction in click chemistry that ideally proceeds instantaneously. An instantaneous Huisgen cycloaddition has been developed that uses a novel catalytic dinuclear copper complex-containing polymeric membrane-installed microflow device. A polymeric membranous copper catalyst was prepared from poly(4-vinylpyridine), copper(II) sulfate, sodium chloride, and sodium ascorbate at the interface of two laminar flows inside microchannels. Elucidation of the structure by XANES, EXAFS, and elemental analysis, as well as second-order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory (MP2) calculations and density functional theory (DFT) calculations assigned the local structure near Cu as a μ-chloro dinuclear Cu(I) complex. The microflow device promotes the instantaneous click reaction of a variety of alkynes and organic azides to afford the corresponding triazoles in quantitative yield.