N-Graphitic Modified Cobalt Nanoparticles Supported on Graphene for Tandem Dehydrogenation of Ammonia–Borane and Semihydrogenation of Alkynes
Garima Jaiswal, Vinod G. Landge, Murugan Subaramanian, Ravishankar G. Kadam, Radek Zbořil, Manoj B. Gawande, Ekambaram Balaraman
Abstract
The utilization of non-noble metals for the design of advanced catalysts is gaining importance from an environmental sustainability viewpoint. A variety of non-noble metal nanoparticles decorated on electron-rich carbon, which provides active sites for the catalysis, have been extensively studied in recent times. Herein, we report an efficient and reusable N-graphitic modified cobalt nanoparticles supported on graphene for dehydrogenation of ammonia–borane (AB, H3N–BH3), and selective catalytic hydrogenation of alkynes in tandem manner. The catalyst was prepared by a simple procedure on a multigram scale using inexpensive precursors followed by pyrolysis. This stable nanocatalyst performs efficiently with a nine-run recycling test. Furthermore, mechanistic studies clearly show that NH3:BH3 acts as a hydride source and methanol acts as a protic source during the stereoselective hydrogenation reaction. The findings demonstrate the potential for the development of N-graphitic modified metal nanoparticles supported on graphene for the development of new materials with far-reaching implications in catalysis and organic synthesis.