Metal-Free Nitrogen- and Boron-Codoped Mesoporous Carbons for Primary Amides Synthesis from Primary Alcohols via Direct Oxidative Dehydrogenation

Article abstract of DOI:10.1021/acscatal.8b02889

Metal-free catalysts show environmental friendliness and cost-effectiveness, as well as less susceptibility to poisoning over metal and metal oxide catalysts. In this respect, we present the synthesis and characterization of metal-free mesoporous nitrogen- and boron-codoped nanocarbon (meso-N,B/C), which exhibits good catalytic performance with conversion of 89% and selectivity of 83% toward amide synthesis from primary alcohols using NH₄OAc as an ammonia resource under an oxygen atmosphere. The facile codoping synthetic strategy was executed by pyrolysis of nitrogen-enriched ligand 4,5-diazafluorene-9-one azine (DAA) and H₃BO₃ as a nitrogen and boron content modulator, respectively. Significantly, control experiments revealed that the reaction proceeded through direct oxidative dehydrogenation of hemiaminal after aldehyde-ammonia condensation, which was remarkably different from that in the previous literature. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations further demonstrate that the selective preference for benzamide largely benefits from the strong adsorption and enhanced activity of oxygen molecules via the interaction with a B atom doped in the catalyst. The active sites in the meso-N,B/C catalyst are proposed to be B atom bonded with N within the graphitic carbon sheets. This founding opens up avenues for the development of modified carbon materials on metal-free catalysis.

Full text of DOI:10.1021/acscatal.8b02889

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Article
Metal-free Nitrogen- and Boron-Codoped Mesoporous
Carbons for Primary Amides Synthesis from Primary
Alcohols via Direct Oxidative Dehydrogenation
Sensen Shang, Pei-Pei Chen, Lianyue Wang, Ying Lv, Wei-Xue Li, and Shuang Gao
ACS Catal., Just Accepted Manuscript • DOI: 10.1021/acscatal.8b02889 • Publication Date (Web): 14 Sep 2018
Downloaded from http://pubs.acs.org on September 14, 2018
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Metal-free Nitrogen- and Boron-Codoped
mesoporous carbons for Primary Amides Synthesis
from Primary Alcohols via Direct Oxidative
Dehydrogenation
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Sensen Shang,†, Pei-Pei Chen,‡,§, Lianyue Wang,† Ying Lv,† Wei-Xue Li,*, ‡,// and Shuang
Gao*,†
†Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese
Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, Liaoning, China
‡State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of
Sciences, Dalian 116023, Liaoning, China
§University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
//School of Chemistry and Material Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, iChEM,
University of Science and Technology of China; Hefei National Laboratory for Physical
Sciences at the Microscale, Hefei 230026, China
ABSTRACT: Metal-free catalysts show superior sustainability and cost-effectiveness, as well as
less susceptible to poisoning over metal and metal oxide catalysts. In this respect, we present the
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synthesis and characterization of metal-free mesoporous nitrogen- and boron-codoped
nanocarbon (meso-N,B/C), which exhibits good catalytic performance with conversion of 89%
and selectivity of 83% towards amides synthesis from primary alcohols using NH4OAc as
ammonia resource under oxygen atmosphere. The facile codoping synthetic strategy was
executed by pyrolysis of nitrogen-enriched ligand 4,5-diazafluorene-9-one azine (DAA) and
H3BO3 as nitrogen and boron content modulator, respectively. Significantly, control experiments
revealed that the reaction proceeded through direct oxidative dehydrogenation of hemiaminal
after aldehyde-ammonia condensation, which was different remarkably from that in the previous
literature. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations further demonstrate that the selective
preference for benzamide largely benefits from the strong adsorption and enhanced activity of
oxygen molecule via the interaction with B atom doped in the catalyst. The active sites in the
meso-N,B/C catalyst are proposed to be B atom bonded with N within the graphitic carbon
sheets. This founding opens up avenues for the development of modified carbon materials on
metal-free catalysis.
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KEYWORDS: N, B-codoped carbon, mesoporous carbon, primary amides, oxidative
dehydrogenation, DFT calculations
INTRODUCTION
Since the past decade, there exists an increasing interest in the development of metal-free
catalysts for organic synthesis due to their distinct advantages over metal-based catalysts, such as
lower cost as well as higher reliability, biocompatibility and sustainability.1 Metal-free materials
behave completely differently from traditional metal/metal oxide materials in catalysis, which
have revolutionized the field of catalysis.2 Carbon materials as a typical nonmetallic
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heterogeneous catalysts, have shown promising application on Friedel–Crafts alkylation
reactions,3 reductive hydrogen atom transfer reactions,4 and oxidation of amines5 and arenes6.
Heteroatom dopants (e.g., B, N, F, P or S) can effectively modulate the electrical properties and
surface physicochemical features of carbons, resulting in enhanced activity of carbocatalysts or
bringing about some new chemical functions.7 Specifically, N-doped graphene have been
recently found to catalyze selective oxidation of ethylbenzene8 and epoxidation of trans-stilbene
and styrene9 owing to the more metal-like d band electronic structure of the ortho-carbon atom
next to the doped N atom. Such heteroatom doping strategy could tune the electron features of
carbon correlated to catalysis. However, reactions are limited to simple catalytic hydrogenations
and oxidations currently. Targeting design over the electrical properties of carbocatalysts for
other challenging synthetic organic reactions remains a challenge. Finding a practical, effective
method to fabricate carbon nanostructures with controllable heteroatom doping may push the
limits of metal-free carbocatalyst performance, thus stimulate progress in this area.
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Amides and their derivatives represent commercially important class of compounds given
their widespread applications as intermediates for the manufacture of biological as well as
chemicals and polymer compounds.10 In the drive towards green and sustainable chemistry,
direct amide synthesis from readily available alcohol attracts significant interest in which
reagents used are non-toxic and pollution-free.11 Since Milstein et al. reported secondary amides
synthesis from primary alcohols and amines with a PNN pincer-type Ru complex with evolution
of H2,12 many successive efforts have been made and most of them employed noble metals such
15
as homogeneous Ru13, Rh14 complexes, and heterogeneous Ag/γ-Al2O3. Besides, despite the
excellent catalytic performance of the heterogeneous Au-based catalysts on amides synthesis
from alcohols and amines under molecular oxygen with excessive indispensable base
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additive,16,17 it is hard to implement large-scale application because of exorbitant cost. And when
it occurred to inorganic ammonia, applicability of the above-mentioned Au-based system is only
limited to benzamide, and the yield is low (50% yield). Recently, a series of primary amides
were successfully achieved by Ru(OH)x/Al2O3 in a two-step strategy (Scheme 1):18 1) initially, it
occurs oxidative dehydrogenation of the alcohol to the aldehyde. Condensation of the aldehyde
with ammonia proceeds to form a hemiaminal intermediate, followed by dehydration to aldimine
and undergoes immediately oxidative dehydrogenation to nitriles; 2) the nitriles further
hydrolyzes into the final primary amides product with additional water. Non-noble-metal-based
catalysts OMS-219 and MnO2/GO20 have been currently developed for one-step primary amide
synthesis from alcohol, which went through same dehydration-dehydrogenation-hydration
sequence of the hemiaminal. Besides, nanoscale iron oxide catalyst was also occupied to catalyze
aromatic aldehyde with ammonia to achieve primary amides.21
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Scheme 1 General reaction pathway for amides synthesis from primary alcohols and ammonia
Despite the significant progress achieved by the above metal-based catalysts, metal-free
catalytic procedure for primary amides still remains strongly desirable from both economical and
ecological perspective, but very challenging. In this contribution, we design and synthesize N,B-
codoped nanocarbons via pyrolysis of nitrogen-rich 4,5-diazafluorene-9-one azine (DAA) and
H3BO3. Hard template method using silica colloid as template can equip the N,B-codoped
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nanocarbons with high specific surface area for preparing an mesoporous codoping nanocarbons
meso-N,B/C. The as-designed codoped carbocatalysts show high reactivity towards primary
amides directly from primary alcohols using NH4OAc as ammonia resource under oxygen
atmosphere. Unexpectedly, the metal-free primary amides synthesis system undergoes via a
novel direct oxidative dehydrogenation strategy of the hemiaminal, not the general dehydration-
dehydrogenation-hydration sequence reported in the previous literature.
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RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Different mass ratio of polypyridyl ligand DAA and H3BO3 as nitrogen and boron resource,
respectively, were mixed thoroughly at the molecular level before SiO2 nanosphere template was
involved. Subsequent pyrolysis at 800°C for 2 hours under N2 atmosphere and NaOH etch
produced the final meso-N,B/C-x (x = 3, 1.5, 0.5), where x denoted the different mass ratio of
DAA and H3BO3. For comparison, undoped mesoporous carbon (meso-C) derived from sucrose
and bulk N,B/C without any hard template assistant were also prepared. All these materials were
tested for their catalytic activity for the benchmark oxidative amidation of benzyl alcohol (1a).
As showed in Table 1, the reaction hardly proceeded in the absence of catalyst (Table 1, entry
1). Precursors DAA and H3BO3 were nearly inactive, suggesting that the active species should be
formed during pyrolysis (Table 1, entry 2). As expected, undoped mesoporous carbon showed
low activity (Table 1, entry 3), whereas the as-designed meso-N,B/C samples obtained by
pyrolysis of DAA and H3BO3, could considerably prompt the transformation of 1a under the
same condition (Table 1, entries 4-6). Combined these results with X-ray photoemission
spectroscopy (XPS) analysis (Table 2 and S1), it was discovered that when B concentration
increased from 1.52 at% in the meso-N,B/C-3 sample to 2.36 at% in the meso-N,B/C-1.5 sample,
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the selectivity of benzamide (2a) versus benzonitrile (3a) (S2a/3a) was enhanced from 7.3 to 9.2.
It seemed that S2a/3a correlated to the doping content of B in consideration of the nearly same N
concentration in meso-N,B/C-x samples as showed in XPS
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Table 1. Aerobic oxidative amidation of benzyl alcohol over different catalystsa
entry
catalyst
conv.(%)b
sel.(%)b
3a
2a
-
2a:3a
-
1
2
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-
8
trace
trace
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DAA+H3BO3
meso-C
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-
-
26
81
89
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63
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4.2
7.3
9.2
9.3
3.5
4.2
meso-N,B/C-3
meso-N,B/C-1.5
meso-N,B/C-0.5
meso-N/C
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18
N,B/C
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aReaction conditions: 1a (0.5 mmol), catalyst (50 mg), 2.5
o
equiv. NH4OAc, 5 bar O2, 1 ml t-amyl alcohol, 130 C, 18 h.
bConversion and selectivity were determined by GC,
naphthalene as inner standard.
analysis. However, further multiplying H3BO3 dosage only resulted in a slightly greater B
concentration (2.67 at%) in meso-N,B/C-0.5 sample and, thus a similar S2a/3a (9.3). The effect of
surface area, pore volume and pore size on the final selectivity should be excluded according to
the N2 physical adsorption analysis results of meso-N,B/C-x samples (Table 2). Among them, the
meso-N,B/C-1.5 performed the best, giving the highest conversion of 1a (89%) and selectivity
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towards 2a (83%, Table 1, entry 5). For comparison, meso-N/C catalyst derived solely from
DAA was also tested, S2a/3a dropped sharply to 3.5, suggesting that B dopant play a pivotal role
in improving amide selectivity (Table 1, entry 7). Bulk N,B/C catalyst gave low conversion,
which indicated that the high surface area and pore volume contribute to expose more active sites,
and thus superior activity (Table 1, entry 8). This conventional concept is corroborated by that
the specific surface area increased from 0 to 513 m2/g after the involvement of SiO2 template
(Table S2). Inaddition to catalyst optimization, the reaction conditions were also optimized
(Table S3−S4, Figure S1): 50mg meso-N,B/C-1.5, 2.5 equiv of NH4OAc, 1 mL of t-amyl alcohol,
reaction temper ature at 130 °C under 0.5 MPa O2 for 18 h. Considering the relatively low
conversion of meso-N,B/C-0.5, we used meso-N,B/C-1.5 as the best-in-class catalyst in all
subsequent experiment. All these results indicate the key role of special electronic structure and
thus physicochemical property of carbocatalyst in tuning the reaction chemoselectivity.
Moreover, the meso-N,B/C-1.5 catalyst shows good stability after six reactions with a little
activity decline (Table S5).
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Table 2. Textural and physicochemical properties of meso-N,B/C-x
Content(%)b
a
SBET
SMicro
SMeso
VTotal
Dpore
(nm)
17.3
11.9
12.1
samples(meso-
N,B/C)
(m2/g) (m2/g) (m2/g) (cc/g)
B
C
N
O
-3
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513
555
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149
177
369
365
378
1.41
1.80
1.42
1.52 76.93 10.15 11.39
2.36 77.06 10.11 10.47
2.67 76.49 10.20 10.63
-1.5
-0.5
aCalculated using the BJH method.bMeasured by XPS.
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a)
b)
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100 nm
100 nm
d)
c)
D
G
1364
1585
x = 0.5, ID/IG = 3.16
x = 1.5, ID/IG = 3.19
x = 3, ID/IG = 1.06
20 nm
100
600
1100
1600
2100
2600
3100
Raman shift (cm-1)
Figure 1. (a) SEM, (b,c) TEM images of meso-N,B/C-1.5, inlet: the selected-area electron
diffraction (SAED) image. (d) Raman spectrum of meso-N,B/C-x
SEM images for as-designed meso-N,B/C was displayed in Figure 1a. The material featured
the sponge-like morphology resulting from silicon sphere template. The interlacing of pores were
displayed in TEM images with a diameter of several to dozen nanometers (Figure 1b), which is
in agreement with N2 physical adsorption results (Figure S2). At higher resolution, it was
observed that nanocarbon wall was of very high graphitic degree (Figure 1c). As showed in the
Raman spectrum, ID/IG increased along with the increasing boron doping (1.06 and 3.19 for
meso-N,B/C-3 and -1.5), which means higher defect density and disorder degree of nanocarbon
material (Figure 1d). The energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectrum clearly proved no metal
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pollution (Figure S3). Energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) mapping revealed that N and B
were uniformly doped into the mesoporous carbon bulk (Figure S4). The uniform doping was
due to the molecule-level mixture of DAA and H3BO3 before thermal calcination.
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(a)
(b)
B 1s
C 1s
B–N3
B–O
C=C
C–N
C–O
O–C=O
C–B–N2
C2–B–N
B–C3
C–B3
186
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196 282
284
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Binding energy (eV)
Binding energy (eV)
(c)
(d)
N 1s
O1s
C=O
N1
N2
C–OH,
C–O–O H
N–B3
N3
Bonded O2
N4
395 397 399 401 403 405 407 409
Binding energy (eV)
526
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Binding energy (eV)
Figure 2. (a) B1s, (b) C1s, (c) N1s, (d) O1s spectra of meso-N,B/C-1.5
To identify surface chemical state of B and N dopants, we performed XPS on the meso-
N,B/C-x samples (Figure 2 and S5). The B 1s spectrum could be divided into three components
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(Figure 2a): the primary binding energy peak of 191.3 eV is assigned to B-N3 structure with h-
BN-like configuration.22 A lower one at 190.5 eV implies a contribution from the B-C bonding
configurations in C-B-N2,23 which is due to C atoms have a lower electronegativity than N.
Another comparable signal at 192.5 eV is characteristic for B-O bonding.22c Noteworthy, B-C3
and C2-B-N should have a lower binding energy (about 187.4 and 188.9 eV, severally) than C-B-
N2,23-24 which has not been observed in all samples. Solid-state 11B MAS NMR spectra have
three observable peaks (Figure S6): the broad region at 20-25 ppm signifies a typical h-BN
structure;25 the sharp peak at 13.3 ppm can be attributed to B-O structure similar to that of bulk
B2O3;26 another sharp peak at around 0 ppm results from B-C structure,27 which are consistent
with the XPS results. The N 1s spectrum was composed of four peaks centered at 398.6, 399.8,
401.1 and 403.5 eV, corresponding to pyridinic N, pyrrolic N, graphitic N and pyridinic N-oxide
(Figure 2c).28 The main peak at 398.6 eV may include the signal at 398.0 eV from NB3 trigonal
units in h-BN.22b, 22d Combined with the experimental results in Table 1, it was proposed that B
bonded with N (B-N3 or C-B-N2) was major active sites targeting amides versus nitriles.
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In addition, the main C 1s component at 284.7 eV is assigned to graphitic C=C species (Figure
2b), whereas three relatively smaller peaks centered at 285.3, 286.2 and 287.9 eV, corresponding
to different C-N bonds (including B-C-N)24, C-O and O-C=O bonding, severally.29 The C 1s
spectrum revealed that there is scarcely any C-B3 (283.6 eV) component.22a, 22b The employment
of the inorganic template and the H3BO3 precursor resulted unconsciously in a considerable
amount of O implant. The O 1s spectrum were deconvoluted into three components with binding
energy peaks centering at 533.4, 532.2, and 531.1 eV (Figure 2d). Peaks locating at 533.4 and
532.2 eV belonged to the C−OH and/or C−O−O−H groups and C=O groups, respectively. The
peak at 531.1 eV corresponds to the absorbed oxygen-containing components (for example CO2,
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H2O et al.) According to the literature,29a, 30 for the sp2 carbon material of high surface area,
universal strong gas adsorption enables them as catalysts by activating gas, especially polarizable
O2, CO2 or NO and organic molecule for chemical transformation.
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The FTIR spectra of all of meso-N,B/C-x samples with various contents of boron are shown in
Figure 3. Two bands at 772 and 1398 cm-1 are assigned to the characteristic in-plane stretching
and out-of-plane bending vibrations of h-BN,22b, 31 respectively, and increased gradually with
increasing B content. In agreement with XPS, FTIR demonstrates that boron is involved in the
structure of the as-obtained materials and is bonded to N to form B-N unit. In addition, the broad
band at 3430 cm-1 is related to N-H or O-H stretching vibrations or water molecules.32 The
stronger bands are assigned to C=N (1590 cm-1 ), and C-N (1254 cm-1).22b B-O bands (1200,
1350, 1450 cm-1) are overlapping with the carbon-nitrogen bands.
h-BN
C=N
h-BN
-OH
C-N
meso-N,B/C-3
meso-N,B/C-1.5
meso-N,B/C-0.5
3900 3400 2900 2400 1900 1400
Wavelength(cm-1)
900
400
Figure 3. FTIR spectra of meso-N,B/C-x
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Figure 4. Possible reaction pathway for primary amides synthesis from alcohols
Scheme 2 Control experiments
In previous work,19-20 it was widely believed that the hemiaminal undergo dehydration-
dehydrogenation-hydration sequence to amides after aldehyde-ammonia condensation (Figure 4,
Path B). To figure out whether our system experienced the hydration of nitriles or not,
benzonitrile instead of benzyl alcohol was used as the substrate under standard condition. It was
found that no benzamide was detected, even if water was added (Scheme 2).
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Figure 5. (a) The structure of periodic BN-doped graphene model. (b) The adsorption
configurations of hemiaminal(left) and O2(right). (c) The potential energy surface of path A and
path B. The inset picture shows the corresponding structure of the intermediate, following after
the dehydrogenation of hemiaminal. (d) Structures of transition states of path A and path B. The
grey, blue, pink and red balls represent carbon, nitrogen, boron and oxygen atoms, respectively
Based on the results vide supra, it is rational to deduce that the present meso-N,B/C-catalyzed
system possibly proceeds through the direct challenging oxidative dehydrogenation of
hemiaminal (path A). It was indirectly attested that meso-N,B/C was capable to catalyze the
dehydrogenation process by benzaldehyde and tetrahydrofuran reacted to the detectable
corresponding amide (Scheme S1).
To rationalize scenario above, BN-doped graphene supercell were built for the density
functional theory (DFT) calculations based on the XPS analysis and FTIR spectra (Figure 5a).
The optimized adsorption configurations of the hemiaminal and oxygen molecule are shown in
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Figure 5b and the corresponding adsorption energies are listed in Table 3. It can be found that
hemiaminal adsorbs parallelly on surface, and benzene ring of hemiaminal is about 3.27 Å away
from surface. Calculated adsorption energy is -1.16 eV, mainly due to π-π interaction with
respect to the BN-doped graphene. Hemiaminal adsorption in perpendicular configuration is
about 0.45 eV weaker. On the other hand, calculated adsorption energy of oxygen molecule is -
1.64 eV, stronger binding than hemiaminal. This means that oxygen molecule rather than
hemiaminal will first populate the BN sites, and adsorbed oxygen molecule at BN sites reacts
with the coming hemiaminal afterward. We note that binding strength of oxygen molecule
towards the BN sites is much stronger than its binding toward the pristine graphene (-0.21 eV).
For graphene doped with graphitic (-0.42 eV) and pyridinic nitrogen (-0.26 eV), though they
bind oxygen molecules slightly stronger, subsequent dissociation barrier are as high as 1.70 eV
and 2.14 eV (Figure S7). These results indicate that compared to the pristine graphene or
graphene doped with graphitic and pyridinic nitrogen, the B-N sites in graphene is more
efficiently to adsorb and active oxygen molecule.
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Table 3. Adsorption energetics of intermediates
Intermediates
hemiaminal
O2
Eads /eV
-1.16
-1.64
-3.01
-0.28
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-1.11
-1.27
OOH
H2O
O (w.r.t. 1/2 O2)
benzamide
aldimine
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Potential energy surfaces of path A (oxidative dehydrogenation) and path B (direct
dehydration) were calculated and shown in Figure 5c. The adsorption energies of involved
intermediates Eads are listed in Table 3. For path A, benzamide is produced via two oxidative
dehydrogenation steps. The dehydrogenation of first hydrogen from -CH group to adsorbed
oxygen molecule is slightly endothermic with a reaction energy of 0.07 eV and low activation
energy of 0.82 eV. The corresponding transition state is given in Figure 5d TS1. Hemiaminal
attacks absorbed oxygen molecule from top, and the hydrogen is located in the middle of carbon
and oxygen atoms with a bond distance of 1.32 Å and 1.29 Å, respectively. The modest reaction
barrier can be understood via the hydrogen transfer between C and O. For second
dehydrogenation from -OH group to OOH* to form benzamide and water, the corresponding
process is nearly barrierless and highly exothermic with reaction energy of -3.27 eV. High
exothermic could be rationalized by strong binding strength between oxygen atom left with the
BN sites, whose dissociative adsorption energy with respect to oxygen molecule in gas phase is -
2.15 eV (Table 3). As seen from Figure 5c, the overall barrier for two dehydrogenation steps in
path A is only 0.82 eV with favorable exothermic reaction energy. In contrast, the barrier for the
direct dehydration in path B over the BN site is 2.45 eV with thermal neutral reaction energy.
Larger barrier comes mainly from the direct C-O bond breaking and H atom transformation
without pronounced stabilization of the corresponding TS (Figure 5d TS2). Compared to path A,
the calculated barrier for direct dehydration (path B) is considerably high, a fact of that makes
path B kinetically unfavorable. Moreover, as indicated above, the BN sites will be populated
mainly by oxygen due to its stronger binding than hemiaminal. In other word, there are actually
no sites available for direct dehydration of hemiaminal over the BN sites, a fact of that further
inhibits path B.
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In order to study the scope of the metal-free meso-N,B/C-catalyzed amidation, various kinds
of structurally diverse benzylic alcohols were tested and the desired amides were obtained in
moderate to high yields as shown in Table 4. Methylbenzyl alcohol gave toluamides (2b–2c) in
moderate yields. In the case of methyl substituted derivatives, the electronic effect resulting from
different location of -CH3 at benzene ring was not significant; benzylic alcohols with electron-
donating -OCH3 group as well as electron-withdrawing
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Table 4. meso-N,B/C-catalyzed aerobic oxidative amidation of alcohols to primary amides
Entry
1
Substrate
Product
Yield(%)
74
1a
2a
2
3
4
55
64
72
1b
2b
1c
2c
1d
2d
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77
1i
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2j
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54
1k
2k
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0
1l
2l
1
m
2m
Reaction conditions: alcohols (0.5 mmol), catalyst (50 mg), NH4OAc
(96mg, 2.5 equiv.), 5 bar O2, 1 ml t-amyl alcohol, 130 C, 18 h. Yields
were determined by GC and confirmed by GC-MS.
o
halogen-substitutents can also give about 70% yields of the corresponding primary amides (2d–
2g), and it went smoothly without dehalogenation. For strong electron-withdrawing groups, –CF3
and −NO2, it also achieved moderate yield of the corresponding primary amides (2h–2i).
Furthermore, pyridine and thiophene derivatives could transform to the corresponding amides
(2j–2k) in 77% and 54% yields, respectively. Regrettably, it suffered from breakage during the
transformation of cinnamyl alcohol, resulting in benzamide was formed as a main product. No
adipoamide (2m) was obtained cause the inactivity of aliphatic alcohols.
CONCLUSION
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In summary, a novel nitrogen- and boron-codoped mesoporous carbon of high surface area
were successfully prepared through pyrolysis of nitrogen-containing precursors DAA and H3BO3
by hard-template approach. When being used as a metal-free catalyst in the aerobic oxidative
amidation of primary alcohols with NH4OAc as ammonia resource under oxygen atmosphere,
the optimal meso-N,B/C-1.5 showed the best catalytic performance with 89% conversion of
benzyl alcohol and 83% selectivity for the desired product benzonitrile. Thorough investigations
on the surface chemical and physical properties of the material revealed that such a good
performance of mesoporous carbon catalysts is ascribed to homogeneous distribution of active
B-N units as well as mesoporous structure and high surface area. DFT calculations further
identified the strong interaction of O2 molecule with boron atom in B-N unit, which further
reinforced the activation ability of molecular oxygen. Heteroatoms codoping strategy makes the
reaction proceed in the direct challenging oxidative dehydrogenation path of hemiaminal, not the
general dehydration-dehydrogenation-hydration process. Such an unprecedented example will
provide a guide for the development of metal-free catalysts and expansion towards challenging
synthetic organic reactions is underway.
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EXPERIMENTAL SECTION
Preparation of catalysts. DAA was prepared according to the literature (details in the
Supporting Information). The typical meso-N,B/C-x catalysts were prepared as follows: DAA
and H3BO3 (270mg:90mg, x=3; 270mg:180mg, x=1.5; 270mg:540mg, x=0.5) were dissolved in
successio into 40 mL DMF at 130 oC under vigorous stirring. After dissolution, 1200 mg Ludox
HS-40 was added into the mixture under vigorous stirring. After evaporation of solvent, the
obtained DAA/H3BO3/SiO2 composites were directly pyrolyzed under N2 at a heating ramp rate
o
o
of 5 C/min to 800 C and the temperature was held for 2 h. Samples resulting from different
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mass ratio are denoted as meso-N,B/C-x catalysts (x= the mass ratio of DAA and H3BO3), and
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finally were obtained after removal of templates by 0.5 M NaOH etching for 5 h at 100 C.
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meso-N/C and N,B/C were prepared in the similar process except no addition of H3BO3 and
Ludox HS-40, respectively. meso-C catalyst was derived from sucrose. 1g sucrose was added
into 40 mL H2O under vigorous stirring. Then 1200 mg Ludox HS-40 was added into the
mixture and then the whole reaction mixture was stirred at 60 °C for 5-6 hours. After evaporation
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of H2O at 100 C, the obtained composites proceeded the above pyrolyzation treatment and
NaOH-etching process to obtained as-designed meso-C catalyst.
General procedure for the synthesis of primary amides and catalyst recycling. In a typical
amidation, 50 mg meso-N,B/C-x, 0.5 mmol benzyl alcohol, 96.4mg NH4OAC (2.5 equiv with
respect to benzyl alcohol, and 1 mL t-amyl alcohol were placed in a vial fitted with a magnetic
stir bar, septum, cap and needle. The vial was attached inside an autoclave and the reaction was
carried out at 130 oC in O2 (5 atm). Subsequently, the autoclave was stirred at the required time.
After the completion of the reaction, the vial were removed from the autoclave. Naphthalene as
standard was added and the reaction product was diluted with tetrahydrofuran followed by
centrifugation and then analyzed by GC and GC mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The meso-N,B/C
o
catalyst was separated by filtration, washed with methanol, and then calclined at 800 C in N2
prior to its use in the reuse experiment.
Catalyst characterization. Nitrogen sorption isotherms were determined at -196 °C using a
QuadraSorb SI4 Station. Piror to the measurement, the samples were degassed in vacuum at
300 °C for 3 h, and the BrunauerEmmett-Teller (BET) surface areas of the samples were
calculated using adsorption data. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurement was
performed with an ESCALAB 250Xi imaging photoelectron spectrometer (Thermo Fisher
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Scientific, USA) using a monochromatic Al Kα X-ray (hv =1846.6 eV). Energy calibration was
carried out using the C 1s peak of adventitious C at 284.8 eV. Transmission electron microscope
(TEM) characterization was conducted on JEM-2100 microscope. Scanning electron microscope
(SEM) images were conducted on a JSM-7800F microscope operating at an acceleration voltage
of 20 kV.
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Computational Details. A p(3×5) monolayer of graphene slab, where a BN3 unit substitutes
4 carbon atoms, was used to model the corresponding adsorption and reaction. All spin polarized
DFT calculations were performed with Vienna ab initio simulation pack-age (VASP).33 In order
to capture the Van der Waal interactions between molecules and the substrate, non-local
functional optB86b-vdW was used.34 Kohn-Sham orbitals were extended in a plane wave basis
with a cutoff energy of 400 eV.
The substrate and adsorption molecules were fully relaxed during the calculation. A vacuum
level of 20 Å was sufficient to avoid interactions between periodic slabs. The convergence
energy and force were set to 1×10-4 eV and 0.02 eV/Å, respectively. Transition states (TSs) were
determined by climbing-image nudged elastic band (CI-NEB) methods35 and confirmed by
frequency analysis.
The adsorption energy Eads and activation energy of transition state Eact were calculated as:
Eads=Eads/sub-Emol-Esub
(1)
Eact=(Eact/sub+Esub)-(Eads1/sub+Eads2/sub) (2)
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The Eads/sub, Emol, Esub, Eact/sub, Eads1/sub and Eads2/sub are the total energy of the adsorbed
molecule, molecule in gas phase, the pure slab, the transition state, adsorbed molecules which are
the reactants to form the transition state, respectively.
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ASSOCIATED CONTENT
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
* E-mail: sgao@dicp.ac.cn;
* E-mail: wxli70@ustc.edu.cn
Author Contributions
Sensen Shang and Pei-Pei Chen contributed equally.
Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
Supporting Information.
The following files are available free of charge.
Synthesis of DAA, optimization of reaction conditons, N2 adsorption analysis, XPS, EDX,
elemental maps, 11B NMR, control experiments
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(21773232, 21773227, 91645202), the Frontier Science Key Project of the Chinese Academy of
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Sciences (QYZDJ-SSW-SLH054), the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFB0602205,
2018YFA0208603)
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