Recently, using sunlight as a driving force with transitional metal oxides as photocatalysts, due to their unique optical and catalytic properties for organic reactions, has been considered to be a promising strategy in synthetic chemistry. Here, a hierarchically structured photocatalyst, a NiFe mixed metal oxide coated Nb2O5 (denoted as Nb2O5@NiFe-MMO) rod array has been successfully fabricated using Nb foil as a substrate. The Nb2O5 rod array was synthesized by the oxidative etching of Nb metal on the surface of the a substrate. The coating NiFe-MMO was obtained by the calcination of a NiFe layered double hydroxide (NiFe-LDH) precursor via the in situ epitaxial growing technique. The Nb2O5@NiFe-MMO rod array extended the photoresponse light region from ultraviolet light around 400 nm to visible light around 600 nm. With the well-designed architecture and highly dispersed NiO and Fe2O3, the as-prepared photocatalyst exhibited excellent activity and recyclability toward the reaction of aerobic coupling under relatively green conditions, with catalytic efficiency of 228 μmol cm-2 (the area is that of the Ni foil substrate) at 30 °C for 5 h. The present work provides a new strategy for the exploration of excellent structured photocatalysts based on transition metal oxide materials for selective aerobic oxidation of benzylamine to imine.
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