Nitrogen‐Doped Carbon Nanotube Confined Co–Nx Sites for Selective Hydrogenation of Biomass‐Derived Compounds

• Published in: Advanced materials (Weinheim) 2019-03, Vol.31 (11), p.e1808341-n/a
• Main Authors: Gong, Wanbing, Lin, Yue, Chen, Chun, Al‐Mamun, Mohammad, Lu, Hai‐Sheng, Wang, Guozhong, Zhang, Haimin, Zhao, Huijun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biomass; biomass‐derived molecules; Carbon nanotubes; Catalysis; Catalysts; Catalytic activity; cobalt nanoparticles; Co–Nx; Fine chemicals; Hydrogenation; Materials science; metal–organic frameworks; Nanoparticles; Organic chemistry; selective hydrogenation; Selectivity
• ISSN: 0935-9648; 1521-4095
• DOI: 10.1002/adma.201808341

Biomass is the most abundant renewable resource on earth and developing high‐performance nonprecious selective hydrogenation (SH) catalysts will enable the use of biomass to replace rapidly diminishing fossil resources. This work utilizes ZIF‐67‐derived nitrogen‐doped carbon nanotubes to confine Co nanoparticles (NPs) with Co–Nx active sites as a high‐performance SH catalyst. The confined Co NPs with Co–Nx exhibit excellent catalytic activity, selectivity, and stability toward a wide range of biomass‐derived compounds. Such active sites can selectively hydrogenate aldehyde, ketone, carboxyl, and nitro groups of biomass‐derived compounds into value‐added fine chemicals with 100% selectivity. The reported approach could be adopted to create other forms of catalytically active sites from other nonprecious metals. N‐doped carbon nanotubes are utilized to confine Co nanoparticles with Co–Nx active sites as a high‐performance selective hydrogenation catalyst capable of converting biomass‐derived compounds into value‐added chemicals. The catalyst exhibits excellent activity, selectivity, and stability toward hydrogenation of aldehyde, ketone, carboxyl, and nitro groups in a wide range of biomass‐derived compounds.