Synergy of Oxygen Vacancies and Base Sites for Transfer Hydrogenation of Nitroarenes on Ceria Nanorods

Abstract CeO 2 nanorod based catalysts for the base‐free synthesis of azoxy‐aromatics via transfer hydrogenation of nitroarenes with ethanol as hydrogen donor have been synthesized and investigated. The oxygen vacancies (O v ) and base sites are critical for their excellent catalytic properties. The O v , i.e., undercoordinated Ce cations, serve as the sites to activate ethanol and nitroarenes by lowering the energy barrier to transfer hydrogen from α−C sp3 −H in ethanol to the nitro group coupling it to the redox reactions between Ce 3+ and Ce 4+ . At the same time, the base sites catalyze the condensation step to selectively produce azoxy‐aromatics. The catalytic route opens a much improved way to use non‐noble metal oxides without additives for the selective functional group reduction and coupling reactions.