Engineered Nitrogen-Decorated Carbon Networks for the Metal-Free Catalytic Isomerization of Glucose to Fructose

Brønsted bases have recently been reported to catalyze the glucose isomerization to fructose. This contribution describes the rational bottom-up approach to the design and synthesis of heterogeneous systems based on a C₆₀ platform surface engineered with catalytically active amino functionalities tethered to carbon nanomaterials within variable (polar/apolar) chemical microenvironments. We demonstrate how carbocatalysts performance for the glucose-to-fructose isomerization may improve depending on amines' neighboring functional groups and their chemical interplay at the C-nanocarrier surface.