Ni nanoparticles decorated Ni–N–C catalyst: Dual‐site synergy for enhanced catalytic hydrogenation

Abstract It is highly desired but still challenging to engineer single‐atom catalysts featuring an M–N–C configuration for efficient catalytic hydrogenation. Herein, Ni nanoparticles (Ni NPs) modified Ni–N–C (termed as Ni1+NPs/NSPC) were fabricated to demonstrate the feasibility of enhancing the catalytic hydrogenation performance of M–N–C by introducing metallic NPs sites. NiNPs sites and Ni1 sites displayed a synergistic effect: NiNPs promote the dissociation of H2 in a homolytic manner with a lower barrier energy than the heterolytic one that occurred on Ni1 sites, whereas Ni1 could burden the activation of substrates. The active H atoms generated at NiNPs migrate to Ni1 sites to complete hydrogenation. Consequently, Ni1+NPs/NSPC catalysts were empowered with excellent hydrogenation performance; they can be applied to a series of hydrogenation substrates (e.g., nitro compounds, furfural, quinine, and cyanophenyl) affording high conversion (95.1%–99.9%) and selectivity (96.8%–99.9%).