Cu nanoparticles coated with porous N-doped carbon for the selective hydrogenation of quinolines under mild conditions

The rational design and construction of high-performance heterogeneous non-noble metal catalysts is an urgent need for the practical application of selective hydrogenation of quinoline and its derivatives. In this work, N-doped porous carbons encapsulated highly-dispersed Cu nanoparticles catalyst (Cu@NC-900) was synthesized by pyrolysis of Cu-MOF precursor, based on the design concept of high efficiency, low cost and excellent durability. Interestingly, the Cu@NC-900 catalyst exhibits extremely high activity, chemo-selectivity and recoverability for the hydrogenation of quinoline and its derivatives using ammonia borane as the hydrogen resources under mild conditions. The characterization results of PXRD, SEM, TEM, Raman spectrum, XPS, EDS and density functional theory (DFT) calculations revealed that the doped N and highly-dispersed Cu species in the catalyst can change the electronic density of the catalyst surface, and thus improve the hydrogenation catalytic performance. This study provides a new idea for rational design of high-performance non-noble metal catalysts for hydrogenation of quinolines under mild conditions.