In situ synthesis of Fe-N-C catalysts from cellulose for hydrogenation of nitrobenzene to aniline

Owing to Fe being the most abundant and least expensive transition metal on the earth, the utilization of Fe-based catalysts for catalytic hydrogenation has attracted worldwide attention. In this work, a series of N-doped C supported Fe catalysts (Fe-N-C) were prepared by co-pyrolysis of cellulose and ferric chloride under ammonia atmosphere. Characterization methods such as elemental analysis, atomic absorption spectroscopy, nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms, transmission electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were carried out to explore the physicochemical properties of the catalysts. Using hydrogenation of nitrobenzene as a model reaction, the catalysts prepared at different pyrolysis temperatures displayed different activities. Fe-N-C-700 exhibited the best activity among these catalysts, with the yield of aniline being up to 98.0% under 5 MPa H2 at 120 °C after 12 h. Combined with the results of catalyst characterization and comparative tests, the transformation of Fe species and the generation of N-doped C, especially graphitized N-doped C, in the catalyst may be the main factors affecting the activity. A kinetic study was carried out and the apparent activation energy was obtained as 31.53 kJ/mol. The stability of the catalyst was also tested and no significant decrease in the activity was observed after 5 runs.