Aswin Suresh, Laurianne Wojcik, Sunita Birara, M Günther, Khalil Youssef, Subhankar Sutradhar, Hélène Jamet, Aurore Thibon-Pourret, A. Jalila Simaan, Catherine Belle, Marius Réglier, Nicolas Le Poul
This review reports on recent research on the importance of bioinorganic synthetic copper–oxygen species for energy and environment fundamental reactions. After a short introduction recalling the general and important aspects of the copper oxygen chemistry, the article describes the last discoveries in C H bond activation, including Hydrogen Atom Abstraction (HAA) and Oxygen atom Transfer (OAT) reactions, catalyzed by synthetic models of copper oxygenases/oxidases. The review then focuses on recent fundamental and applied studies in the fields of the Oxygen Reduction Reaction (ORR) and Oxygen Evolution Reaction (OER) that are electrocatalyzed by homogenous or supported molecular copper complexes. Further discussion emphasizes the involvement of molecular copper‑oxygen adducts in aldehyde deformylation, as well as recent progress in the field of artificial copper enzymes. • A great variety of copper-oxygen species has been characterized • Mixed-valent dicopper-oxygen adducts are efficient catalysts for C H bond activation • Heterogeneous ORR and OER can be efficiently performed with Cu complexes • Artificial Cu enzymes benefit from advances in modern computational tools