Polydopamine‐Encapsulated Dendritic Organosilica Nanoparticles as Amphiphilic Platforms for Highly Efficient Heterogeneous Catalysis in Water

Abstract

Main observation and conclusionAqueous heterogeneous catalysis is a green, sustainable catalytic process that attracts increasing attention, but it often suffers from poor mass transfer, substrate adsorption and catalyst dispersion. Herein, we synthesized a type of amphiphilic core‐shell catalysts with a hydrophilic polydopamine (PDA) shell and a hydrophobic dendritic organosilica nanoparticle (DON) core for heterogeneous catalysis in water. The hydrophilic shell allowed the catalyst dispersing well in water, and the hydrophobic core facilitated the absorption of organic reactants. The hierarchical core‐shell structure facilitated rational arrangement of the location of catalytic species to match the reaction sequence. The obtained metal, enzyme and metal‐enzyme amphiphilic catalysts demonstrated improved stability, selectivity and activity in aqueous reactions, including Pd‐catalyzed cross‐couplings (Suzuki, Liebeskind‐Srogl, Heck and Sonogashira), enzymatic enantioselective reduction, chemoenzymatic cascade synthesis of chiral compounds and chemoenzymatic cascade degradation of organophosphates. The amphiphilic catalysts could be easily in situ recovered, and their high catalytic performance was sustained for five cycles.