Ultra dispersed cobalt anchored on nitrogen-doping ordered porous carbon as an efficient transfer hydrogenation catalyst

A non-noble heterogeneous catalyst, ultra dispersed Co anchored on ordered porous nitrogen-riched carbon (CoN@PCN) was fabricated through a sacrificial-template pyrolysis strategy, in which SBA-15 and 1, 10-phenanthroline were employed as the hard template and ligand, respectively. Co was ultra dispersed owing to the confinement effect of SBA-15 and the strong coordination effect of Co with phenanthroline. The CoN@PCN displayed excellent catalytic activity and selectivity for the hydrogenation of nitroarenes with ammonia-borane as hydrogen donor under mild conditions, which can be ascribed to the ultra dispersed Co sites, high adsorption ability of the catalyst for ammonia-borane, large specific surface area and abundant porous structure of CoN@PCN. Based on the results of density functional theory calculations, the catalytic mechanism of CoN@PCN for the hydrogenation reaction was proposed. The recycled CoN@PCN had no obvious change in catalytic performance after five consecutive cycles, indicating its durability and recyclability.