Characterisation of lithium copper hydrides - TOSCA

Copper hydride chemical reduction of carbonyl derivatives is a very useful tool in synthetic organic chemistry. This chemistry evolved from fundamental investigations of the simplest possible copper hydride: Cu(I)H . “Simple” copper hydrides are very scarce. The only known systems are: (i) CuH, (ii) Ba7Cu3H17 (which contains [CuH4]3– and H– ions), (iii) Zr2CuD~5 (limiting composition: 2Zr2+ [Cu+D3]2– 2D–) and (iv) LixCuyH(x+y) ( known for (x,y) = (1,1), (2,1), (3,1), (4,1), (5,1), (1,2), (2,3) [7]). (i) – (iii) have all been structurally characterised by neutron diffraction, (iv) has not, however, there is no spectroscopic data for any of them and that is the subject of this proposal.