Glass wool: a novel support for heterogeneous catalysis

Heterogeneous catalysis presents significant advantages over homogeneous catalysis such as ease of separation and reuse of the catalyst. Here we show that a very inexpensive, manageable and widely available material – glass wool – can act as a catalyst support for a number of different reactions. Different metal and metal oxide nanoparticles, based on Pd, Co, Cu, Au and Ru, were deposited on glass wool and used as heterogeneous catalysts for a variety of thermal and photochemical organic reactions including reductive de-halogenation of aryl halides, reduction of nitrobenzene, Csp(3)–Csp(3) couplings, N–C heterocycloadditions (click chemistry) and Csp–Csp(2) couplings (Sonogashira couplings). The use of glass wool as a catalyst support for important organic reactions, particularly C–C couplings, opens the opportunity to develop economical heterogeneous catalysts with excellent potential for flow photo-chemistry application.