Continuous Flow Photocatalysis Boosting C─N Coupling for Sustainable High‐Efficiency Formamide Synthesis
The construction of C─N bonds from simple precursors under ambient conditions is a fundamental challenge in green chemistry, especially when it comes to avoiding energy-intensive protocols. Here, we present a continuous flow photocatalytic platform that enables the efficient coupling of C─N bonds between methanol and ammonia at ambient temperature and pressure. By synergistically engineering a Pd clusters-decorated TiO<sub>2</sub> photocatalyst (1Pd/TiO<sub>2</sub>) and a mass transfer-enhanced gas-liquid-solid Taylor flow reactor, the system achieves a remarkable formamide productivity of 256.80 µmol h<sup>-1</sup> (6.83-fold enhancement compared to batch reactors) with less than 10% decay in production rate over 50 h of continuous operation, which is remarkably superior to state-of-the-art photocatalytic systems for the synthesis of C─N compounds from C1 small molecules. Distinguishing from the conventional simultaneous bimolecular one-electron oxidation pathway, a mechanistic study has shown that the precisely tailored Pd clusters on TiO<sub>2</sub> induce charge polarization to drive methanol dehydrogenation toward critical *CH<sub>2</sub>O intermediates, enabling direct nucleophilic NH<sub>3</sub> attack for C─N bond formation, thereby circumventing thermodynamic/kinetic barriers inherent to asynchronous radical generation in prior systems. This work establishes a paradigm for the sustainable, efficient synthesis of formamide via photocatalytic C─N coupling by bridging nanoscale photocatalyst engineering with macroscopic reactor design.
Authors
- Siyuan Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-0812-1340)
- Xiaojun Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3606-1211)
- Chengyuan Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8690-8698)
- Chao Gao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0777-591X)
- Zhiyong Tang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0610-0064)
- G.H. Zhai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-8647-9890)
- Haifeng Lv (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9491-6367)
- Yujie Xiong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1995-8257)
- Junchi Xu
- Gang Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9110-3942)
- Zilong Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9800-686X)
- Chao Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9545-3963)
- Zhenzhong Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9884-0053)
- Jiawei Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9069-7002)
- Yang Pan
Institutions
- Suzhou University of Science and Technology (CN)
- Shanghai Advanced Research Institute (CN)
- National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (CN)
- Anhui Normal University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Angewandte Chemie International Edition
- Published
- 2025-09-10
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202515803
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Advanced Photocatalysis Techniques
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.36