Water-assisted one-pot synthesis of N-doped carbon supported Ru catalysts for heterogeneous catalysis

Article abstract of DOI:10.1039/d0cc04743k

For the first time, a simple yet efficient water-assisted one-pot pyrolysis (WAOP) strategy was developed toin situliberate the inaccessible Ru active sites confined inside N-doped carbon. The liberated Ru/CN catalysts exhibit a 9-fold improvement in catalytic activity for quinoline hydrogenation compared with catalysts obtained from the water-free pyrolysis process, and high tolerance for selective hydrogenation of various quinolines substituted with different functional groups. We anticipate that WAOP addresses a key issue that currently plagues carbon-based catalyst synthesis and should lead to improvements in fields as diverse as chemical production and environmental protection.

Full text of DOI:10.1039/d0cc04743k

View Article Online
View Journal
ChemComm
Chemical Communications
Accepted Manuscript
This article can be cited before page numbers have been issued, to do this please use: Y. Cao, H. Zhang,
K. Liu and K. Chen, Chem. Commun., 2020, DOI: 10.1039/D0CC04743K.
Volume 54
Number
January 2018
Pages 1-112
This is an Accepted Manuscript, which has been through the
Royal Society of Chemistry peer review process and has been
accepted for publication.
1
4
ChemComm
Chemical Communications
rsc.li/chemcomm
Accepted Manuscripts are published online shortly after acceptance,
before technical editing, formatting and proof reading. Using this free
service, authors can make their results available to the community, in
citable form, before we publish the edited article. We will replace this
Accepted Manuscript with the edited and formatted Advance Article as
soon as it is available.
You can find more information about Accepted Manuscripts in the
Information for Authors.
Please note that technical editing may introduce minor changes to the
text and/or graphics, which may alter content. The journal’s standard
Terms & Conditions and the Ethical guidelines still apply. In no event
shall the Royal Society of Chemistry be held responsible for any errors
or omissions in this Accepted Manuscript or any consequences arising
from the use of any information it contains.
ISSN 1359-7345
COMMUNICATION
S. J. Connon, M. O. Senge et al.
Conformational control of nonplanar free base porphyrins:
towards bifunctional catalysts of tunable basicity
rsc.li/chemcomm

Page 1 of 5
Please d oC hn eo mt Ca do mj u ms t margins
View Article Online
DOI: 10.1039/D0CC04743K
COMMUNICATION
Water-assisted one-pot synthesis of N-doped carbon supported
Ru catalysts for heterogeneous catalysis
Received 00th January 20xx,
Accepted 00th January 20xx
Yueling Cao,* Hepeng Zhang, Kangkai Liu and Kai-Jie Chen*
DOI: 10.1039/x0xx00000x
6
For the first time, a simple yet efficient water-assisted one-pot reactant molecules. To re-expose the metal NPs fully covered
pyrolysis strategy (WAOP) was developed to in situ liberate the by carbon layers, post-treatment method such as calcinating
inaccessible Ru active sites confined inside N-doped carbon. The the pre-synthesized catalysts in air is normally performed to
liberated Ru/CN catalysts exhibit a 9-fold improvement in catalytic remove the outer carbon layer. Unfortunately, the aggregation
activity for quinoline hydrogenation compared with catalysts of metal NPs is normally inevitable, and turns the core metal
obtained from water-free pyrolysis process, and high tolerance for into oxidation state requiring further reduction in hydrogen
selective hydrogenation of various quinolines substituted with atmosphere, which makes the whole process complex and
6
a, 6d
different functional groups. We anticipate that WAOP addresses energy-intensive.
Therefore, the development of an
one key issue that currently plagues carbon-based catalyst efficient approach to fabricate N-doped carbon supported
synthesis and should lead to improvements in fields as diverse as metal catalysts with appropriate exposure is highly desired.
chemical production and environmental protection.
Heterogeneous catalysts, especially based on metal
nanoclusters, play an irreplaceable role in energy and fuel
industries.1 Nowadays, around 85-90ꢀ% of all modern
2
processes in the chemical industry requires the catalysts.
Scheme 1. Illustration of the routes to synthesize Ru/CN
Metal/N-doped carbon composite presents as an important catalyst by water assisted one-pot pyrolysis method.
3
type of catalysts for various practical applications. It is found
The carbon-steam reforming reaction [C (s) + H
2
O (g) →
that well-distributed metal dispersion, sufficient metal-support
2
H (g) + CO (g)] is a well-known reaction that is used to
produce H and CO from coal. Recently, this conventional
2
chemical reaction is proved to be effective for fabricating
activated carbon materials with large pores, in which
interactions, and superior metal particle stability can be
achieved by supporting metal nanoparticles (NPs) on the N-
doped carbon, further improving the catalytic performance.
One-pot pyrolysis of a mixture of metal, carbon and nitrogen
precursors is known as the most efficient one to fabricate such
composites.4 Generally, the catalysts prepared by one-pot
pyrolysis method possess core-shell structure that metal NPs
encapsulated by carbon layers, which can effectively prevent
the sintering of metal NPs via the effects of the spatial
confinement and enhance stability of metal particles by
7
8,9
amorphous carbon can be selectively removed.
The
corrosion of carbon materials generally occur more rapidly at
defect sites. Therefore, we envisioned that water can also
selectively react in-situ with carbon at carbon/metal interface
in high-temperature pyrolysis process, enhancing the exposure
of metal NPs in resultant catalysts. Herein, we successfully
developed a green, simple yet efficient approach for preparing
series of N-doped carbon supported Ru catalysts with high
catalytic performance by water-assisted one-pot pyrolysis
method (WAOP). As expected, the outer carbon layers
surrounded Ru particles can be effectively removed by the
occurrence of the carbon-steam reforming reaction during
high temperature pyrolysis process, which enhances the
5
isolation from acidic environment or other harsh condition.
However, the outer carbon layer in this type of catalyst will
unavoidably reduce the activity of the catalyst to some extent
by blocking active sites and/or decreased diffusion rate of
Key Laboratory of Special Functional and Smart Polymer Materials of Ministry of surface exposure of metal NPs and their catalytic activity. To
Industry and Information Technology, School of Chemistry and Chemical
Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, 710072, China.
E-mail: yuelingcao@nwpu.edu.cn; ckjiscon@nwpu.edu.cn
our best knowledge, this is the first time to utilize the water
steam as an assisting pyrolysis agent to fabricate N-doped
Electronic Supplementary Information (ESI) available: [details of any carbon supported metal catalysts.
supplementary information available should be included here]. See
DOI: 10.1039/x0xx00000x
Please do not adjust margins

Please d oC hn eo mt Ca do mj u ms t margins
Page 2 of 5
COMMUNICATION
Journal Name
2
O-yh catalysts (x and y stand considerably affected by the pyrolysis temperatVuierweAwrticitlehOntlhinee
The preparation of Ru/CN-xH
for the pyrolysis temperature and pyrolysis time, respectively) assistance of water, consistent with prevDiOoIu: s10o.1b0s3e9/rDv0aCtiCo0n47th43aKt
with the assistance of water is illustrated in Scheme 1. Briefly, the physical activation with steam is an efficient method for
8
the mixture of chitin and RuCl
3
was thermally treated at the synthesis of activated carbon. For example, the total pore
3
temperatures ranging from 500 to 800 °C for different times volume slightly increased from 0.35 to 0.36 cm /g when the
2
with the presence of water using N as the carrying gas. The pyrolysis temperature increased from 500 to 600 °C. However,
ruthenium/amorphous N-doped carbon composites were first the total pore volume increased remarkably over 600 °C,
formed at low temperature stage. Subsequently, the defective indicating that the higher pyrolysis temperature exhibited
carbon surrounding Ru NPs reacted with water molecules more power to destroy the carbon with the assistance of
following carbon-steam reforming reaction at high water, beneficial for pore construction.
temperature stage, during which the carbon layers
surrounding Ru particles were removed in-situ and thus more
Ru particle surface was exposed.
Figure 1. XRD patterns of various Ru catalysts prepared with
different pyrolysis temperatures (A) and times (B), the mean
size of Ru particles determined by TEM analysis in different
catalysts (C), and N
2
adsorption-desorption isotherms of Ru/CN Figure 2. TEM images and particle size distribution of Ru/CN-
prepared with or without the assistance of water (D).
2
700-1h catalyst (A and B) and Ru/CN-700H O-1h catalyst (C
and D), CO uptake and metal area of Ru for various Ru
catalysts (E).
Interestingly, for the samples pyrolyzed at low
temperatures (500 and 600 °C), no peak belonging to metallic
Ru could be observed (figure 1A), implying that the Ru
Considering that the higher pyrolysis temperature would
particles might be well dispersed on the N-doped carbon, cause the serious aggregation of Ru particles, the influence of
which is in line with the TEM results (figure S4A-4D). However, different pyrolysis times at 700 °C on the physicochemical
when the pyrolysis temperature reached to 700 °C, three weak properties of Ru/CN-700H O-yh catalysts was further
2
peaks centred at 38.4, 42.2, and 44.0° appeared, highly investigated. No peak belonging to metal Ru could be
consistent with characteristic of metallic Ru (JCPDS No. 06- observed when the short pyrolysis time (e.g. 0.5 h) was applied
0
663). Moreover, the intensity of these peaks increased with (figure 1B). This could be ascribed to the fact that only very
the rise of pyrolysis temperature, probably reasoned by the limited portion of carbon was destroyed within such a short
aggregation of Ru particles under high pyrolysis temperature time, hard to cause obvious aggregation of Ru particles.
(
figure 1C and figure S4E-4H). This can be resulted from the Further increasing the pyrolysis time to 1 h, more carbon
fact that the N-doped carbon could be effectively etched by surrounded Ru particles was etched at same temperature with
the steam reforming reaction at pyrolysis temperature of 700 the assistance of water. For the Ru/CN-700H O-1h sample,
C, and thus partial Ru particles lost their protection by carbon three weak peaks corresponding to metal Ru at around 38.4,
2
°
layers which in turn lead to the growth of Ru particles. It 42.2, and 44.0° were observed and the mean size of Ru
should be noted that except for the peaks belonging to particles became 1.98 nm, slightly larger than that of Ru/CN-
metallic Ru, other peaks observed in various Ru/CN samples 700H
are attributed to the impurity of carbon support derived from the total pore volume also increased to 0.42 cm /g for the
2
O-0.5h sample (1.63 nm) (figure S5A-5B). Additionally,
3
chitin. According to the literature, XRD and TEM analysis Ru/CN-700H
2
O-1h sample, which is much higher than that of
O-0.5h sample (0.13 cm /g) (table 1 and figure
3
(
figure S1 and S2), these peaks are mainly corresponding to Ru/CN-700H
2
1
0
S3B). As the longer pyrolysis time applied, both the intensity of
the vaterite-type calcium carbonate (JCPDS No. 33-0268).
The digestion of carbon by the steam reforming reaction was the peaks belonging to metal Ru and the mean size of Ru
also confirmed by N
adsorption-desorption isotherms of particles remarkably increased, especially for the Ru/CN-
various Ru/CN-xH
O-2h catalysts (figure S3A). As expected, the 700H O-3h and Ru/CN-700H O-4h samples (figure 1C and
textural properties of Ru/CN catalysts (table 1) were figure S5E-5H). This may be resulted from the fact that too
2
2
2
2
2
| J. Name., 2012, 00, 1-3
This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 20xx
Please do not adjust margins

Page 3 of 5
Please d oC hn eo mt Ca do mj u ms t margins
Journal Name
COMMUNICATION
much carbon layers surrounded Ru particles was etched by the embedded into the carbon matrix, thus losing tVhieew AartbicilleitOynlitnoe
steam reforming reaction under long pyrolysis time, thus adsorb CO molecules. In sharp contrastD,ObI:o1t0h.10th39e/DC0OCCu0p4t7a4k3eK
serious aggregation of Ru particles occur because of the lack of and the metal area increased significantly with presence of
the protection of carbon layers, which could be supported by water steam during the one-pot pyrolysis process. The
the mean size of Ru particles increased to 3.13 and 4.79 nm for enhanced CO uptake can be mainly attributed to the
the samples pyrolyzed with 3 and 4 h, respectively.
destruction of defective carbon-surrounded Ru NPs through
the steam reforming reaction during the one-pot pyrolysis
process, thus exposing more Ru particles accessible to CO
molecules. Additionally, the XPS analysis of Ru/CN catalysts
prepared with or without the assistance of water was also
performed. As shown in figure S6, no binding energy shift for
Table 1. Textural properties of various Ru catalysts and their
performance in selective hydrogenation of quinoline.
[
a]
[b]
[c]
Sel.[d]
(%)
TOF[e]
S
BET
2
V
t
Con.
Entry
Catalyst
3
-1
(
m /g)
379
434
476
472
414
446
288
612
570
(cm /g)
0.35
0.36
0.45
0.68
0.13
0.42
0.30
0.64
0.65
(%)
5.5
(h )
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Ru/CN-500H O-2h
98.0
98.1
98.2
98.0
98.1
98.1
97.9
98.2
98.0
13.6
146.0
190.0
2
0
both Ru and N could be detected, and similar Ru percentage
could be observed in Ru/CN-700-1h and Ru/CN-700H O-1h
2
Ru/CN-600H O-2h
2
59.8
77.8
50.0
65.7
73.6
8.0
Ru/CN-700H O-2h
2
129.6 catalysts, implying there is almost no difference in the
162.8 interaction between metal particles and N-doped carbon for
193.8 these catalysts. Based on above discussion, it can be,
Ru/CN-800H O-2h
2
Ru/CN-700H O-0.5h
2
Ru/CN-700H O-1h
2
Ru/CN-700-1h
20.1
170.2
168.5
therefore, concluded that the difference of the exposure
degree of metal is the key factor influencing the catalytic
performance of these catalysts.
Ru/CN-700H O-3h
2
78.8
80.0
Ru/CN-700H O-4h
2
[a]SBET: BET surface area. [b]
V
: total pore volume. Con. for conversion, and
[c]
t
Due to the sensitivity to available catalysis-active sites,
reaction conditions: catalyst 20 mg, quinoline 0.5 mmol, ethanol 5 mL, 80 °C, 2
1
2
, 1.5 h. [ Sel. for the selectivity of 1,2,3,4-tetrahydroquinoline, and the
d]
selective hydrogenation of quinoline and its derivatives was
MPa H
other
2
by-products are mainly 5,6,7,8-tetrahydroquinoline
and deliberately chosen as the model reaction to test these Ru/CN
decahydroquinoline. [ TOF calculated based on the total Ru loadings.
e]
catalysts fabricated by WAOP. Interestingly, the catalyst with
To further clarify the role of water in the one-pot pyrolysis smaller particle size did not possess a higher catalytic activity
of the mixture of chitin and metal salts, the Ru/CN-700-1h (table 1, entries 1-2) due to better coverage of carbon layer on
catalyst was prepared without the assistance of water. With Ru particles leading to less contact between these Ru particles
the assistance of water during one-pot pyrolysis process, the and quinoline molecules. With increased pyrolysis
Ru/CN-700H
2
O-1h catalyst displayed higher BET surface area temperature from 600 to 700 °C, the TOF remarkably
2
3
-1
(446 m /g) and pore volume (0.42 cm /g) than that of the increased from 146.0 to 190.0 h although these catalysts
2
3
Ru/CN-700-1h catalyst (288 cm /g and 0.30 cm /g) (table 1 and possessed larger mean size of Ru particles. Further increase
figure 1D). It is known that a partial gasification of the unstable the pyrolysis to 800 °C, the TOF began to decline. Impressively,
carbon could occur during the steam activation process via the the effect of pyrolysis time on the catalytic activity of the
steam reforming reaction, thus generating a larger porous Ru/CN-700H O-yh catalysts exhibited the similar trend. Based
2
1
1
structure with increased specific surface area. Additionally, on the above discussion, it can be found that both the
the Ru/CN-700H O-1h catalyst exhibited larger mean size (1.98 pyrolysis temperature and time exhibit remarkable influence
2
nm) and wider particles size distribution (0.66 nm) compared on the catalytic performance of various Ru catalysts
to that of Ru/CN-700-1h catalyst (figure 2A-2D), which is synthesized by WAOP. The Ru catalyst with the best catalytic
consistent with XRD results. The slight aggregation of Ru performance could be achieved at moderate pyrolysis
particles for the Ru/CN-700H O-1h catalyst further confirmed temperature and time. As a comparison, the Ru catalyst
2
that the carbon layers surrounding Ru particles could be pyrolyzed in absence of water was also tested for this
effectively etched under one-pot pyrolysis process with the hydrogenation reaction. The Ru/CN-700-1h catalyst prepared
assistance of water.
without water assistance exhibited very low activity (TOF 20.1
-1
To further corroborate the destructive effect of defective h ) (table 1, entry 7). However, for the Ru/CN-700H O-1h
2
carbon raised by the steam reforming reaction, the exposure catalyst prepared with the assistance of water, a very
-1
degree of Ru particles in these comparing catalysts was significant enhancement in their activity (TOF 193.8 h ) was
calculated based on irreversible CO adsorption and obtained. This further confirmed that surface blockage by the
summarized in figure 2E. Negligible CO uptake was observed in carbon layers surrounding Ru particles could be effectively
the blank run (CN-700H2O-1h), indicating that the Ru particles eliminated during the pyrolysis process with the assistance of
are indeed the active sites for CO chemisorption. Both the CO water, consistent with the CO chemisorption results.
uptake and metal area firstly increased and then decreased Additionally, the evolution of conversion and selectivity with
with the increasing of the pyrolysis temperature or pyrolysis reaction time demonstrated that quinoline can be smoothly
time. For comparison, it was found that the Ru/CN-700-1h converted into 1,2,3,4-tetrahydroquinoline with high
catalyst prepared by the one-pot pyrolysis without the selectivity over the Ru/CN-700H O-1h catalyst (figure S7).
2
assistance of water exhibited a much lower CO uptake (85.2
2
After proving the catalytic efficiency of Ru/CN-700H O-1h
2
μmol/gRu) and metal area (4.2 m /gRu), although it possessed on quinoline hydrogenation, we extended our studies to
smaller mean particle size (1.18 nm), which mainly result from various quinolines with different substituent groups.
the fact that part of the Ru particles was completely Impressively, the catalytic process is highly selective toward
This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 20xx
J. Name., 2013, 00, 1-3 | 3
Please do not adjust margins

Please d oC hn eo mt Ca do mj u ms t margins
Page 4 of 5
COMMUNICATION
Journal Name
the hydrogenation of the N-heteroarene ring to afford in all
tested substrates the corresponding 1,2,3,4-
tetrahydroquinolines. Remarkably, even for more challenging
reactions, the corresponding valuable functional
tetrahydroquinolines were obtained in excellent selectivity
figure 3, entries 4-6) when quinolines substituted by halogen
group (F, Cl and Br). It is clear that the results demonstrate
that the WAOP can effectively enhance access to the surface
of the metal particles without greatly altering their selectivity.
Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts to declare”.
View Article Online
DOI: 10.1039/D0CC04743K
Notes and references
(
1
2
3
B. Viswanathan, Catalysis: principles and applications, CRC
Press, 2002.
G. Rothenberg, Catalysis: concepts and green applications,
John Wiley & Sons, 2017.
(a) M. Li, F. Xu, H. Li, Y. Wang, Catal. Sci. Technol. 2016, 6,
2
The stability of the Ru/CN-700H O-1h catalyst was also
investigated. As depicted in figure S8, both of conversion and
selectivity towards 1,2,3,4-tetrahydroquinoline were almost
preserved during at least six catalytic cycles, only with a slight
3
670-3693; (b) L. He, F. Weniger, H. Neumann, M. Beller,
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2016, 55, 12582-12594; (c) Y. Cao, S.
Mao, M. Li, Y. Chen, Y. Wang, ACS Catal. 2017, 7, 8090-8112;
decrease in activity (from 73.6 to 62.0%). The ICP, N
adsorption, and TEM analysis for the reused Ru/CN-700H O-1h
2
(
4
3
d) Y. Chen, Z. Wang, S. Mao, Y. Wang, Chin. J. Catal. 2019,
0, 971-979; (e) S. Mao, C. Wang, Y. Wang, J. Catal. 2019,
75, 456-465.
2
indicated that after six cycles both the Ru loading (0.61 wt%)
2
and BET surface area (394 m /g) slightly decreased, but the
4
5
(a) Y. Cao, M. Tang, M. Li, J. Deng, F. Xu, L. Xie, Y. Wang, ACS
Sustain. Chem. Eng. 2017, 5, 9894-9902; (b) Y. Cao, H. Zhang,
K. Liu, Q. Zhang, K.-J. Chen, ACS Sustain. Chem. Eng. 2019, 7,
mean size (2.10 nm) of Ru particles gently increased (table S1,
figures S9 and S10). The slight change of textural properties of
reused Ru/CN-700H O-1h can be responsible for slight
2
1
2858-12866.
decrease in activity observed during recycling experiments.
(a) J. Wang, Z. Wei, Y. Gong, S. Wang, D. Su, C. Han, H. Li, Y.
Wang, Chem. Commun. 2015, 51, 12859-12862; (b) H. Yang,
R. Nie, W. Xia, X. Yu, D. Jin, X. Lu, D. Zhou, Q. Xia, Green
Chem. 2017, 19, 5714-5722; (c) S. Ghosh, S. Ramaprabhu,
Carbon 2019, 141, 692-703.
6
(a) L. D. Menard, F. Xu, R. G. Nuzzo, J. C. Yang, J. Catal. 2006,
2
43, 64-73; (b) A. Cao, R. Lu, G. Veser, Phys. Chem. Chem.
Phys. 2010, 12, 13499-13510; (c) G. Ma, A. Binder, M. Chi, C.
Liu, R. Jin, D.-e. Jiang, J. Fan, S. Dai, Chem. Commun. 2012,
4
8, 11413-11415; (d) Y. Cao, B. Zhao, X. Bao, Y. Wang, ACS
Catal. 2018, 8, 7077-7085; (e) W. Gong, Q. Yuan, C. Chen, Y.
Lv, Y. Lin, C. Liang, G. Wang, H. Zhang, H. Zhao, Adv. Mater.
2
019, 31, 1906051.
D. R. Palo, R. A. Dagle, J. D. Holladay, Chem. Rev. 2007, 107,
992-4021.
(a) K. Fu, Q. Yue, B. Gao, Y. Sun, L. Zhu, Chem. Eng. J. 2013,
28, 1074-1082; (b) Y.-J. Zhang, Z.-J. Xing, Z.-K. Duan, L.
Figure 3. Hydrogenation of various substituted quinolines.
7
8
2
Reaction conditions: Ru/CN-700H O-1h 20 mg, substrate 0.5
3
2
mmol, ethanol 5 mL, 80 °C, 2 MPa H . Conversion outside
parentheses. Selectivity in parentheses.
2
To conclude, a general and convenient method of WAOP
was developed to prepare N-doped carbon supported Ru
catalysts with efficient catalytic performance, comparing to
traditional multiple-step fabrication method with large energy
and time consumption. Although in our initial proof-of-concept
studies the size and dispersion of metal particles might be
slightly affected, the effectiveness of catalysts from WAOP
method for catalysis application can be significantly enhanced.
By careful manipulation, this type of water assisted one-pot
pyrolysis process can be expanded to be a general and highly
effective method for improving the surface accessibility of
catalysis-active nanoparticles without compromising their
deliberately engineered size distribution or morphological
characteristics.
Meng, Y. Wang, Appl. Surf. Sci. 2014, 315, 279-286.
W. Xia, Catal. Sci. Technol. 2016, 6, 630-644.
9
1
0 (a) J. Jiang, S.-F. Chen, L. Liu, H.-B. Yao, M.-R. Gao, S.-H. Yu,
Chem. Commun. 2009, 5853-5855; (b) J. Yu, H. Guo, S. A.
Davis, S. Mann, Adv. Funct. Mater. 2006, 16, 2035-2041.
1 R. Azargohar, A. K. Dalai, Microporous and Mesoporous
Materials 2008, 110, 413-421.
2 (a) M. Tang, J. Deng, M. Li, X. Li, H. Li, Z. Chen, Y. Wang, Green
Chem. 2016, 18, 6082-609; (b) X. Wang, W. Chen, L. Zhang, T.
Yao, W. Liu, Y. Lin, H. Ju, J. Dong, L. Zheng, W. Yan, X. Zheng,
Z. Li, X. Wang, J. Yang, D. He, Y. Wang, Z. Deng, Y. Wu, Y. Li, J.
Am. Chem. Soc. 2017, 139, 9419-9422; (c) S. Yue, X. Wang, S.
Li, Y. Sheng, X. Zou, X. Lu, C. Zhang, New J. Chem. 2020, 44,
1
1
1
1861-11869; (d) Y. Cao, L. Ding, Z. Qiu, H. Zhang, Catal.
We acknowledge financial support from National Natural
Science Foundation of China (No.21805227 and No.21878243),
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No.
Commun. 2020, 143, 106048; (e) S. Xu, S. Chansai, Y. Shao, S.
Xu, Y.-C. Wang, S. Haigh, Y. Mu, Y. Jiao, C. E. Stere, H. Chen, X.
Fan, C. Hardacre, Appl. Catal. B: Environ. 2020, 268, 118752;
3
102017jc01001), and Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi
(f) W. Li, F. Li, J. Chen, L. E. Betancourt, C. Tu, M. Liao, X. Ning,
(No.2019JQ-106, 2018JM2028).
J. Zheng, R. Li, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2020,
doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.0c01318.
4
| J. Name., 2012, 00, 1-3
This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 20xx
Please do not adjust margins

Page 5 of 5
ChemComm
View Article Online
DOI: 10.1039/D0CC04743K
A water-assisted one-pot pyrolysis method (WAOP) was developed to fabricate the N-
doped carbon supported Ru catalysts for quinoline hydrogenation for the first time.