A highly sulfur resistant and stable heterogeneous catalyst for liquid-phase hydrogenation

Developing sulfur resistant and stable hydrogenation catalysts with a high activity is of great economic and environmental interest for the production of value-added fine chemicals, as it allows the use of crude industrial level raw materials as reactant, prevents environmental unfriendly stoichiometric reduction and cuts down energy-intensive separation/purification procedures. Here we show the metallic Ni nanoparticle well-enclosed in multilayer N doped graphene shells for the catalytic hydrogenation of nitrobenzene derivatives. The nickel core promoted multilayer N doped graphene shell not only maintains the hydrogenation ability but also create a differentiate surface electronic state preventing the poisoning of vulnerable metal by S impurities. The catalytic performance has met the product requirement of hydrogenation of industrial raw materials including 4.00 wt% inorganic/organic sulfur poisoning substances, excessive acid residue and concentrated salts. A ‘d orbitals enclosure’ strategy was used to prepare a multilayer N doped graphene-encapsulated Ni-based ‘metallic carbon’ catalyst for liquid-phase hydrogenation of industrial-grade nitro compounds containing high sulfur impurities (up to 4.00 wt% organic sulfur). The nickel core promoted multilayer N doped graphene shell not only maintains the hydrogenation ability but also create a differentiate surface electronic state preventing the poisoning of vulnerable metal by S impurities. • The ‘d orbitals enclosure’ strategy was proposed for the development of sulfur resistant catalyst. • The catalytic performance of multilayer N doped graphene-encapsulated Ni-based ‘metallic carbon’ catalyst has met the requirements for the hydrogenation of crude industrial level raw materials. • The multilayer N doped graphene is essential to enhance the sulfur resistance. • The multilayer N doped graphene enables the distinguished adsorption behaviors of the poisoning impurities and reaction molecules.