Gold Nanoparticle-Catalyzed Formation of Nitrogen-containing Compounds-From Mechanistic Understanding to Synthetic Exploitation

During the last decade, heterogeneous catalysis using gold nanoparticles has gained importance as an efficient method for the oxidation of alcohols and aldehydes. The scope of these reactions has recently been extended to nitrogen-containing compounds, which is a particularly promising substrate class, as nitrogen is ubiquitous in both materials science and biology. It has been shown that gold nanoparticles can overcome many of the frequently encountered difficulties caused by the coordinating properties of nitrogen when using homogenous catalysis. This minireview is meant to serve as an entry point for new researchers in this emerging field and is divided into sections based upon which nitrogen-containing products are synthesized using gold nanoparticles in the critical reaction step.