Metal nanoparticles decorated two-dimensional nanosheets as heterogeneous catalysts for coupling reactions

This review presents a brief discussion on the numerous synthetic techniques used to prepare metal nanoparticles supported on various two-dimensional (2D) materials. Special emphasis has been given to graphene and other 2D analogues such as g-C3N4, h-BN, MoS2, WS2 etc. supported metal nanoparticles. In addition to these, this review outlines the applications of the developed metal nanoparticles-2D composite materials for catalytic coupling reactions, which have recently emerged as a promising strategy in carbon-heteroatom or carbon-carbon bond formation. The effect of size and morphology of metal nanoparticles-2D composite materials on their catalytic performance toward different coupling reactions such as Suzuki, Heck, Sonogashira, etc. have been discussed in detail.