Modified Nanocarbons for Catalysis

Abstract Nanocarbons represent useful scaffolds in the preparation of last generation nanostructured catalysts, and their chemical functionalization through covalent or non‐covalent modification is becoming an important tool for introducing well‐distributed anchoring points and, in the meantime, could be the first step toward the assembling of hybrid nanostructured materials with a hierarchical order. In this Review are reported synthesis and catalytic applications of chemically modified nanocarbons such as fullerene, carbon nanotubes, graphene, nanohorns and nanodiamonds in organocatalytic and metal‐based (metal nanoparticles, organometallic complexes) reactions, covering major chemical reactions encompassing, the oxidation of alcohols, aldehydes, olefins, and silanes, hydrogenation reactions of aldehydes, ketones, and alkenes, dehydrogenative coupling of silanes, C−C coupling reactions, epoxidation of alkenes, CO 2 fixation into cyclic carbonates, and asymmetric reactions, among others.