Ethyl cellulose derived porous iron@N-doped carbon material for N–H carbene insertion reaction

Abstract

A newly developed, facile and sustainable strategy, in which zinc salt, melamine and ethyl cellulose are applied as pore-forming agent, nitrogen and carbon source respectively, has been disclosed for the synthesis of Fe/N-codoped carbon materials. This material exhibits excellent catalytic efficiency towards N–H carbene insertion reaction for the synthesis of unnatural amino acid derivatives. Fe/FeOx nanoparticles tranfer electrons to N-doped carbon owing to the Mott-Schottky Effect, which is beneficial to the formation of iron carbene intermediate. N-doping can offer more Lewis base sites, which promotes the proton transfer process. Fe/FeOx nanoparticles are coated with graphitic carbon, thereby avoiding the loss and deactivation of iron sites in this material. Therefore, this material can be reused at least four times without significant loss in activity.