Fe Single Atoms and Fe2O3 Clusters Liberated from N-Doped Polyhedral Carbon for Chemoselective Hydrogenation under Mild Conditions

In the area of catalysis, selective reduction of nitro compounds to amino compounds is a colossal challenge due to the existence of competitive reducible functional groups. Herein, an Fe-based catalyst FeSAs/Fe2O3ACs/N-doped polyhedral carbon (NPC) has been designed and synthesized. As we expected, compared with FeSAs and FeNPs, FeSAs/Fe2O3ACs/NPC shows excellent catalytic performance (turnover frequency up to 1923 h-1, calculated with nitrobenzene), chemoselectivity, and tolerance during the hydrogenation reaction of nitro compounds under room temperature because of the synergistic effects between FeSAs and Fe2O3ACs. The theoretical calculations show that FeSAs prefers to undergo hydrazine decomposition to generate hydrogen and the Fe2O3ACs surface is more active toward the nitrobenzene reduction to aniline.