Atomically dispersed Fe atoms anchored on COF-derived N-doped carbon nanospheres as efficient multi-functional catalysts

Shengjie Wei; Yu Wang; Wenxing Chen; Zhi Li; Weng-Chon Cheong; Qinghua Zhang; Yue Gong; Lin Gu; Chen Chen; Dingsheng Wang; Qing Peng; Yadong Li

doi:10.1039/c9sc05005a

Atomically dispersed Fe atoms anchored on COF-derived N-doped carbon nanospheres as efficient multi-functional catalysts

Chem Sci. 2019 Nov 30;11(3):786-790. doi: 10.1039/c9sc05005a.

Authors

Shengjie Wei¹, Yu Wang², Wenxing Chen³, Zhi Li¹, Weng-Chon Cheong¹, Qinghua Zhang⁴, Yue Gong⁴, Lin Gu⁴, Chen Chen¹, Dingsheng Wang¹, Qing Peng¹, Yadong Li¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University Beijing 100084 China zhili@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn ydli@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn.
² Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences Shanghai 201800 China.
³ Beijing Key Laboratory of Construction Tailorable Advanced Functional Materials and Green Applications, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology Beijing 100081 China.
⁴ Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100190 China.

Abstract

Non-noble metal isolated single atom site (ISAS) catalysts have attracted much attention due to their low cost, ultimate atom efficiency and outstanding catalytic performance. Herein, atomically dispersed Fe atoms are prepared by a covalent organic framework (COF)-absorption-pyrolysis strategy. The obtained Fe ISASs anchored on COF-derived N-doped carbon nanospheres (Fe-ISAS/CN) served as a multi-functional catalyst in electro-catalysis and organic catalysis, exhibiting better catalytic performance than commercial Pt/C for the ORR with good stability and methanol tolerance. Besides electro-catalysis, the Fe-ISAS/CN also showed outstanding catalytic performance in organic reactions, such as the selective oxidation of ethylbenzene to acetophenone and dehydrogenation of 1,2,3,4-tetrahydroquinoline with excellent reactivity, selectivity, stability and recyclability. Co and Ni ISAS materials can also be prepared by this method, suggesting that it is a general strategy to obtain metal ISAS catalysts. This work will provide new insight into the design of COF-derived metal ISAS multi-functional catalysts for electro-catalysis and organic reactions using rationally designed synthetic routes and the optimized structure of substrates.