Fe Single Atoms and FeO 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 Fe/FeO/N-doped polyhedral carbon (NPC) has been designed and synthesized. As we expected, compared with Fe and Fe, Fe/FeO/NPC shows excellent catalytic performance (turnover frequency up to 1923 h, calculated with nitrobenzene), chemoselectivity, and tolerance during the hydrogenation reaction of nitro compounds under room temperature because of the synergistic effects between Fe and FeO. The theoretical calculations show that Fe prefers to undergo hydrazine decomposition to generate hydrogen and the FeO surface is more active toward the nitrobenzene reduction to aniline.