Organonitrogen Chemicals from Oxygen-Containing Feedstock over Heterogeneous Catalysts

Organonitrogen chemicals, such as amines, nitriles, amides, amino acids, and N-heterocycles, are ubiquitous building blocks in chemical industry. Conventional methodologies to prepare these chemicals, however, suffer from using toxic, corrosive starting materials and/or employing harsh reaction conditions. Recent advances suggest that heterogeneous catalysts are promising to promote the formation of organonitrogen chemicals from cheap and abundant materials. In this Review, we summarize the most recent developments using supported solid catalysts to make organonitrogen chemicals from oxygen-containing feedstock and NH3. We introduce four key transformations including carbonyls/alcohols to amines, alcohols/carbonyls to nitriles, alcohols/nitriles to amides, and alcohols/carbonyls to N-heterocycles. In each section, the function of the catalyst and the structure–activity correlations are discussed. Auxiliary factors affecting the performance of the catalysts, such as solvent effect, substituent group effect, and/or reactor design are also reviewed.