Efficient and selective room-temperature gold-catalyzed reduction of nitro compounds with CO and H2O as the hydrogen source

Article abstract of DOI:10.1002/anie.200904647

[Chemical equation presented] Taking hydrogen from water: Gold catalysis enabled the selective reduction of nitro compounds under very mild conditions with a combination of H₂O and CO as the reductant (see scheme). This environmentally friendly reaction proceeded in high yield and with high chemoselectivity in the presence of a wide range of functional groups

Full text of DOI:10.1002/anie.200904647

Communications
DOI: 10.1002/anie.200904647
Sustainable Gold Catalysis
Efficient and Selective Room-Temperature Gold-Catalyzed Reduction
of Nitro Compounds with CO and H2O as the Hydrogen Source**
Lin He, Lu-Cun Wang, Hao Sun, Ji Ni, Yong Cao,* He-Yong He, and Kang-Nian Fan
The selective reduction of nitro compounds to the corre-
sponding amines is one of the most important transformations
in synthetic organic chemistry.[1] Although a number of
methods have been developed, the search for new facile,
chemoselective, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly
procedures that avoid the use of expensive and hazardous
stoichiometric reducing agents in large excess has attracted
substantial interest.[2] An attractive alternative is the catalytic
reduction of nitro compounds with cheap and readily
available CO and H2O as the hydrogen source. In particular,
the specific reduction of a nitro group under mild conditions
in the presence of other functionalities is desirable. As
opposed to commonly used catalytic hydrogenation, which
involves H2 as the reductant,[3] the use of CO and H2O as the
hydrogen source leads to remarkable chemoselectivity and is
of great industrial potential,[4] especially when an efficient and
reusable catalytic system can be employed. However, relevant
studies have largely focused on various ruthenium- or
rhodium-based homogeneous systems,[5] which are not practi-
cally useful because of their low turnover numbers (TONs)
and turnover frequencies (TOFs), and the requirement of
organic and/or inorganic bases in large excess as cocatalysts.
Despite tremendous efforts in the last two decades,[6] few
examples of heterogeneous catalyst systems for the reduction
of a nitro compounds with CO/H2O as the reductant have
appeared, and these systems have often suffered from low
efficiency as well as limited substrate scope and catalyst
reusability.
nanoparticles have remained largely unexplored.[9] Recently,
Corma and Serna reported that the chemoselective reduction
of a nitro group in the presence of other reducible function-
alities is possible with supported gold nanoparticles.[7d,10] One
critical limitation associated with the current gold-catalyzed
processes for the reduction of nitro compounds, however, is
that the hydrogen-delivery rate is too low for practical
applications.[9a,11] Herein, we describe a highly effective
gold-catalyzed, CO/H2O-mediated reduction that circum-
vents inconvenient H2 activation to enable the rapid, efficient,
and chemoselective reduction of a wide range of organic nitro
compounds under mild conditions. The reaction is general
and proceeds efficiently under an atmosphere of CO at room
temperature. To the best of our knowledge, this gold-based
catalytic system is the most efficient, simple, and environ-
mentally friendly catalytic system for the selective reduction
of nitro compounds that has been developed to date.
Initially, nitrobenzene was used as a model substrate in
investigations of the catalytic activity of different solid
catalysts under a CO atmosphere at room temperature. The
Pt, Pd, and Ru catalysts tested were not active for this
reaction. Of the various gold catalysts tested, very small Au
nanoparticles (with a diameter of about 1.9 nm) supported on
TiO2 showed the highest activity (this catalyst system is
denoted as Au/TiO2-VS; see details in the Supporting
Information). As observed for other gold-catalyzed process-
es,[12] both the nature of the support and the particle size had a
strong influence on the activity of the Au nanoparticles. Thus,
at 258C under 1 atm of CO, aniline was produced exclusively
with an average TOF in the range of 0.9–33 hꢀ1 (Table 1,
entries 1–4). No trace of azo or azoxy compounds, by-
products frequently formed under homogeneous CO/H2O
catalysis,[5] was observed. Of particular note is that the
reaction proceeded efficiently at a pressure of only 1 atm,
which enables the use of common glass reactors. There are
very few catalysts that are effective under such mild
conditions, the most active of which is a homogeneous
[Rh(CO)2(acac)] complex in the presence of a large excess
of NaOH.[5b] However, the TOF of Au/TiO2-VS is 97 times
greater than that of [Rh(CO)2(acac)] under base-free reaction
conditions (Table 1, entry 9). The high activity of Au/TiO2-VS
under ambient conditions significantly improves the econom-
ical and environmental impact of this gold-catalyzed reduc-
tion process.
Supported gold nanoparticles have emerged as active and
extremely selective catalysts for a broad array of organic
reactions owing to their unique catalytic properties under
mild conditions.[7] Whereas the potential of gold-catalyzed
selective oxidation reactions for atom-economical and sus-
tainable organic synthesis is widely recognized,[8] the possi-
bilities offered by catalytic reduction with supported gold
[*] L. He, Dr. L. C. Wang, H. Sun, J. Ni, Prof. Y. Cao, Prof. H. Y. He,
Prof. K. N. Fan
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative
Materials
Department of Chemistry, Fudan University
Shanghai 200433 (China)
Fax: (+86)21-6564-3774
E-mail: yongcao@fudan.edu.cn
[**] We thank the NSF of China (20633030, 20721063, and 20873026),
the State Key Basic Research Program of PRC (2009CB623506), the
Science & Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality
(08DZ2270500, 07QH14003), and the Shanghai Education Com-
mittee (06SG03) for financial support.
Next, the reaction conditions were optimized for the
reduction of nitrobenzene through variation of the pressure
and solvent. First, the effect of the pressure of CO (PCO) was
investigated. The reaction rate increased dramatically as PCO
was raised from 1 to 5 atm (Table 1, entries 1, 10, and 11)[13]
but leveled off at 5–15 atm (Table 1, entries 12 and 13). These
Supporting information for this article is available on the WWW
under http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/anie.200904647.
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Chemie
Table 1: Reduction of nitrobenzene to aniline with CO/H2O in the
presence of various catalysts at 258C.[a]
inductively coupled plasma (ICP) analysis that no gold was
present in the filtrate (below 0.10 ppm). These results ruled
out any contribution to the observed catalysis from gold
species that had leached into the reaction solution and
showed that the observed catalysis was intrinsically hetero-
geneous.
Entry Catalyst
PCO
[atm] [h]
t
Yield[b]
[%]
Average TOF
[hꢀ1
]
1
Au/TiO2-VS
Au/TiO2
Au/Fe2O3
Au/CeO2
Pt/TiO2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
3
5
10
15
5
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
2
1
1
1
2.5
>99
57
3
17
n.r.
n.r.
n.r.
n.r.
33
19
0.9
5.7
–
–
–
–
0.34 (12.5)
50
99
99
99
40
2[c]
3[c]
4[c]
5[c]
6[c]
7[c]
8
To examine the scope of the CO/H2O reduction of nitro
groups with Au/TiO2-VS, we investigated the reduction of a
series of structurally diverse nitro compounds. The reaction
was remarkably selective for the synthesis of a variety of
aminoaromatic compounds, regardless of the presence of
electron-donor or electron-acceptor substituents (Table 2,
entries 2–4). Halogen-substituted nitrobenzenes were re-
duced cleanly to the corresponding chloro- or fluoroanilines
without any dehalogenation (Table 2, entries 5–8), a side
reaction often encountered with other procedures, including
catalytic hydrogenation. 6-Nitroquinoline was reduced to 6-
aminoquinoline; thus, the heterocyclic ring remained intact
(Table 2, entry 9). p-Nitroacetophenone, p-cyanonitroben-
zene, and 1-nitroanthraquinone were also reduced to the
corresponding amines (aminoanthraquinone is a key frag-
Pd/C
Ru/Al2O3
TiO2 (P25)
[Rh(CO)2(acac)]
Au/TiO2-VS
Au/TiO2-VS
Au/TiO2-VS
Au/TiO2-VS
Au/TiO2-VS
9[d]
10
11
12
0.4 (15)
>99
>99
>99
>99
>99
13
14[e]
[a] Reaction conditions: PhNO2 (1 mmol), metal (1 mol%), EtOH/H2O
(15 mL, 2:1 v/v), 258C; acac=acetylacetonate, n.r.=no reaction. [b] The
yield was determined by GC (internal standard: n-decane). [c] Au/TiO2
and Au/Fe2O3 were provided by the World Gold Council. Au/CeO2 and Pt/
TiO2 were prepared according to references [7e] and [2e], respectively.
Pd/C and Ru/Al2O3 were provided by Alfa Aesar. [d] Reference [5b]:
PhNO2 (5 mmol), Rh (0.4 mol%), 2-methoxyethanol/H2O (20 mL, 3:1 v/
v), 258C. Values in parentheses refer to a reaction carried out under the
following conditions: PhNO2 (5 mmol), Rh (0.4 mol%), 2-methoxyetha-
nol/5n NaOH (20 mL, 3:1 v/v), 258C. [e] The reaction was carried out
under the following conditions: PhNO2 (1 mmol), Au/TiO2-VS (1 mol%
Au), H2O (15 mL), 258C.
=
ꢁ
ment in dyes), without reduction of the C O or C N groups
(Table 2, entries 10, 15, and 16). Aldehyde, ester, and alkene
functionalities present as substituents on the aromatic ring
also remained unaffected during the reduction of nitro-
benzenes by this procedure (Table 2, entries 11–14).[14] Nota-
bly, the monoreduction of dinitrobenzenes also occurred
selectively to give the corresponding nitroanilines as the
major products (Table 2, entries 17–20). Many conventional
procedures involving hydride reducing agents, hydrogenation,
or indium reagents failed to show such high chemoselectiv-
ity.[2] Moreover, this CO/H2O reduction system was applicable
to non-activated aliphatic nitro compounds; the correspond-
ing amines were obtained in almost quantitative yield
(Table 2, entries 22–24).
experiments were conducted in a closed autoclave with CO at
a constant reaction pressure, so that as the reaction proceeded
and CO was consumed, this reductant was replenished.
Studies on the effect of the solvent revealed that ethanol
was the solvent of choice.[14] When the solvent was changed to
THF or N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF), the conversion of
nitrobenzene decreased to 65 and 52%, respectively (see
Table S1, entries 2 and 3 in the Supporting Information). An
even lower conversion was found when the solvent was
changed to acetone (see Table S1, entry 4 in the Supporting
Information). Interestingly, it was found that the reaction
proceeded smoothly even in neat water in the absence of an
organic solvent (Table 1, entry 14). This result was extremely
welcome, not only because the reaction in water was very
clean, but also because in this particular case with Au/TiO2-
VS, a triphasic system of an aqueous phase, an organic phase,
and an inorganic solid was formed, which enabled the
straightforward separation of both the catalyst and the
product from the reaction mixture. No reduction of nitro
compounds has been reported previously that proceeds with
CO/H2O in neat water at room temperature under base-free
conditions in the presence of a heterogeneous catalyst.
The applicability of the present synthetic protocol was
highlighted by a reduction of nitrobenzene on a 250 mmol
scale with 0.01 mol% Au at 1008C under CO (15 atm;
Scheme 1). The reduction was complete within 2.5 h, during
which time the TON (based on Au) of nitrobenzene
approached 9950 with an excellent average TOF of approx-
imately 3980 hꢀ1. When the reaction was carried out on this
scale, the Au/TiO2-VS catalyst could also be reused without
loss of activity (see the Supporting Information). These TON
and TOF values observed with Au/TiO2-VS are significantly
higher than those for other active catalysts, such as
[Ru3(CO)12]/Et3N (TON = 1778, TOF = 889 hꢀ1, 20 atm,
1508C),[6d] [Ru3(CO)12]/Ph-bian (TON = 512, TOF = 341 hꢀ1,
30 atm, 1658C; Ph-bian = bis(phenylimino)acenaphtene),[6c]
[Ru3(CO)9(peo-dppsa)3]
(TON = 975,
TOF = 97.5 hꢀ1,
40 atm, 1408C; peo-dppsa = poly(ethylene oxide)-substituted
4-(diphenylphosphanyl)benzenesulfonamide),[5e] and Au/
Fe(OH)x (TON = 1960, TOF = 1287 hꢀ1, 15 atm, 1008C).[6a]
In terms of the mechanism of reduction, one might
envisage that the present gold-catalyzed reaction could
proceed by the reduction of nitro compounds with hydrogen
gas generated in situ from the low-temperature water–gas
shift (LTWGS) reaction (CO + H2O!CO2 + H2, generally in
the temperature range of 150–2508C).[15] However, this
To verify whether the observed catalysis was due to solid
Au/TiO2-VS or leached gold species, we carried out the
reduction of nitrobenzene under the conditions described in
entry 1 of Table 1 and removed the Au/TiO2-VS catalyst from
the reaction mixture by filtration at approximately 40%
conversion of nitrobenzene. After removal of the Au/TiO2-VS
catalyst, the filtrate was again held at 258C under CO (5 atm).
In this case, no reaction proceeded. It was confirmed by
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Communications
Table 2: Reduction of nitro compounds to the corresponding amines with CO/H2O.[a]
Entry Substrate
Conv./Select.[b] Entry Substrate Conv./Select.[b]
CO-induced reduction of H2O[7a]
could be involved in the rate-deter-
mining step according to a kinetic
study based on H2O:D2O switching
t
t
[h] [%]
[h] [%]
(kH/kD = 1.54 ꢂ 0.02).
Therefore,
1
1.0 99/>99
13
1.2 99/99
the fact that ultrasmall Au nano-
particles supported on titania can
substantially facilitate the crucial
2
3
3.5 99/>99
2.5 99/>99
14
15
1.5 99/99
ꢀ
Au H bond-forming step appears
to be a key factor in the high activity
of the catalyst for nitro group
reduction and is in line with the
broad literature documenting the
catalytic activity of supported gold
nanoparticles.[17]
2.5 99/>99
4
5
3.0 98/99
16[c]
17
4.0 99/>99
In conclusion, we have devel-
oped an exceedingly efficient and
highly chemoselective gold-cata-
lyzed approach for the clean reduc-
tion of a wide range of organic nitro
compounds to the corresponding
amines with cheap and readily
accessible CO and H2O as the
hydrogen source. The unprece-
dented room-temperature activity
coupled with the low operational
pressure make this method readily
adaptable to production on an
industrial scale, where safety and
environmental factors are of partic-
ular concern. We believe that the
results presented herein open up a
new avenue for the application of
supported gold catalysts to green
and sustainable organic synthesis.
0.8 99/>99
2.7 97/91[d]
6
7
8
1.0 99/>99
0.5 99/>99
0.6 99/>99
18
3.5 96/97[d]
4.0 98/94[d]
3.0 99/96[d]
19[c]
20
9
10
11
2.0 99/>99
0.8 99/>99
3.5 99/95
21
22
23
2.5 99/>99
5.5 99/>99
4.5 99/>99
Received: August 20, 2009
Revised: October 14, 2009
12
1.2 99/99
24
4.0 99/>99
Published online: November 17, 2009
Keywords: chemoselectivity · gold ·
nitro compounds · reduction ·
sustainable chemistry
[a] Reaction conditions: substrate (1 mmol), Au/TiO2-VS (1 mol% Au), EtOH/H2O (15 mL, 2:1 v/v), CO
(5 atm), 258C. [b] Conversion and selectivity were determined by GC (internal standard: n-decane).
[c] DMF/H2O (15 mL, 2:1 v/v). [d] Selectivity for the nitroaniline.
.
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