Fatty nitriles have lately become of interest in the frame of biofuels or for the valorization of the oil part of biomass as fine chemicals such as polymers. The production of long-chain fatty nitriles by direct reaction of esters with ammonia has however

A crystalline porous metal–organic framework Cu2(BPDC)2(BPY) was synthesized and characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectra, atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS), hydrogen temperature-programmed reduction (H2-TPR), and nitrogen physisorption measurements. The Cu-MOF could be used as an efficient heterogeneous catalyst for the copper-catalyzed cross-dehydrogenative coupling reaction of ethers with 2-carbonyl-substituted phenols. The Cu2(BPDC)2(BPY) exhibited significantly higher catalytic activity than that of other Cu-MOFs such as Cu3(BTC)2, Cu(BDC), and Cu(BPDC). The Cu-MOF also offered advantages over several copper salts such as CuCl2, CuCl, CuI, Cu(NO3)2, and Cu(OAc)2 in terms of the catalytic activity as well as the catalyst reusability. To the best of our knowledge, the cross-dehydrogenative coupling reaction of ethers with 2-carbonyl-substituted phenols via C–H activation under oxidative conditions using a heterogeneous catalyst was not previously mentioned in the literature.