Copper, highly reactive forms

Copper is also highly reactive, forming oxides or halides (salts) when exposed to air and moisture. The green or blue products of corrosion found on copper and copper alloys are mixtures of copper salts and sulfates. Copper has been used in its native state, but more often in alloys such as brass or bronze. Most copper mined today is used in electrical wire and switches, and in brass alloys. 

Patent Highly Reactive Form of Copper and Reagents Thereof... 

General. Highly reactive forms of copper are obtained by the reduction of CuLPRj (R=Bu or... 

We owe to Kato and his colleagues a considerable advance in furan copper reagents. They have demonstrated the formation of the lithium di(3-furyl) cuprate species 87 which is highly reactive and possesses hard properties that suit it to reaction at hard centers, mainly carbonyl carbon.223 The reagent is easily prepared in situ from 3-furyllithium and Cu2I2. Simple copper derivatives do not react with ketones, but this cuprate reacts well and quantitatively with acid chlorides. It also reacts well with some epoxides (oxirans). Moreover, there is another form prepared in the presence of... 

Metals tarnish when their surface atoms react with gaseous substances in the air. Oxygen is a highly reactive element, as we saw in the previous chapter, and it combines with iron to form the ruddy oxide compound we recognize as rust. Copper reacts with oxygen and carbon dioxide to form a greenish patina of copper carbonate. Silver resists the advances of oxygen but will slowly combine with sulphur compounds in the air to form black silver sulphide. 

---