Probing the bifunctional catalytic activity of ceria nanorods towards the cyanosilylation reaction

Ceria nanorods were demonstrated to be an active, bifunctional catalyst for the cyanosilylation of aldehydes. The catalytic activity of ceria was shown to be positively correlated with a decrease in the coordination numbers of neighbouring oxygen atoms around cerium atoms in the catalyst. Chemisorption and density functional theory studies suggested that the coordinatively unsaturated cerium sites exposed by the surface oxygen vacancy defects functioned as Lewis acid sites and the neighbouring oxygen atoms behaved as Lewis base sites in the catalytic cycle.