Air-mediated construction of O, N-rich carbon: An efficient support of palladium nanoparticles toward catalytic formic acid dehydrogenation and 4-nitrophenol reduction

Abstract

Oxygen and nitrogen-rich functional groups which are generally present in carbon materials may significantly affect their catalytic properties. The development of O, N-rich functional carbon materials with a simplified and low-budget strategy is of great importance for practical application. Herein, we describe a facile and straightforward method to prepare high contents of nitrogen and oxygen-rich carbon derived from ethylenediamine tetra-acetic acid tetra-sodium salt (Na4EDTA) by one-step carbonization in muffle furnace without inert gas protection. Compared with the carbon (EC-N700) synthesized in an argon atmosphere, the carbon (EC-A700) synthesized in an air-rich condition was more conducive to the formation of edge defects and topological defects and possessed higher contents of N and O elements. Consequently, the O, N-rich carbon EC-A700 was used as an efficient support of palladium nanoparticles toward catalytic formic acid dehydrogenation and nitroarene reduction. The catalyst Pd/EC-A700 achieved outstanding activity for formic acid dehydrogenation with a turnover frequency (TOF) up to 7039 h−1 at 60 °C. At the same time, the obtained catalyst Pd/EC-A700 also demonstrated exceptional catalytic performance in the 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) reduction with corresponding rate constant k of 0.72 min−1 under mild reaction conditions, which proved that the prepared catalyst Pd/EC-A700 has potentially applied in catalytic hydrogenation. This low-cost and simple approach breaks the tradition in mind that pyrolysis should always operate under inert conditions and provides a straightforward route to construct O, N-rich carbon as appealing materials for a wide variety of applications.