A new catalytic performance of Mn2O3 nanorods for reduction of aromatic nitro compounds

The reduction of aromatic nitro compounds is the simplest and most widely used method for preparing aniline compounds, and widely used in chemistry, biology, medicine, dyes, and so on. Among them, reduction of aromatic nitro compounds by sodium borohydride usually requires noble metal-based catalyst, which results in difficulty in industrial application. In this letter, we report a discovery that the Mn2O3 nanorods can replace noble metal nanoparticles to efficiently catalyze the reduction of aromatic nitro compounds with different types of substituents by NaBH4, and moderate to excellent yields were obtained. By studying the similar catalytic performance of different manganese oxide materials, we proposed a plausible catalytic mechanism. Our discovery will open up new applications of manganese oxide materials in the field of catalysis.