New nitrogen assembly carbon catalyst has potential to transform
chemical manufacturing

Date:
August 26, 2020
Source:
DOE/Ames Laboratory
Summary:
Scientists have discovered a metal-free carbon-based catalyst that
has the potential to be much less expensive and more efficient
for many industrial concerns, including manufacturing of bio-
and fossil fuels, electrocatalysis, and fuel cells.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory have
discovered a metal-free carbon-based catalyst that has the potential to
be much less expensive and more efficient for many industrial concerns, including manufacturing of bio- and fossil fuels, electrocatalysis,
and fuel cells.


==========================================================================
At their most fundamental, these industry processes involve splitting
strong chemical bonds, like hydrogen-hydrogen, carbon-oxygen, and carbon-hydrogen bonds. Traditionally this has been accomplished with
catalysts that use transition or precious metals, many of them expensive
and low in natural abundance -- like platinum and palladium.

The scientists performed experiments with a type of heterogeneous
catalyst, Nitrogen-Assembly Carbons (NACs), in which the design
and placement of nitrogen on the carbon surface greatly influenced
the catalytic activity of the material. These N atoms on carbon
surfaces were previously believed to be distant from one another,
as the close placement of N atoms is thermodynamically unstable. The
team in Ames Lab correlated the N precursors and pyrolysis temperature
for the NACs synthesis with the N distribution and discovered that
meta-stable N assemblies can be made by design and deliver unexpected
catalytic reactions. Such reactions include hydrogenolysis of aryl
ethers, dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene and tetrahydroquinoline, and hydrogenation of common unsaturated functionalities (such as ketone,
alkene, alkyne, and nitro groups). Moreover, the NACs catalysts are
robust with consistent selectivity and activity for both liquid and gas
phase reactions under high temperature and/or pressure.

"We discovered that how the nitrogen was distributed on the surface of
these NACs really mattered, and in the process realized that this was an entirely new kind of chemical activity," said Ames Laboratory Associate Scientist Long Qi.

"The discovery should enable scientists to design nitrogen assemblies
that are able to accomplish more sophisticated and challenging chemical transformations without the need for transition metals" said Ames
Laboratory scientist Wenyu Huang. "It broadly applies to many different
types of chemical conversions and industries."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by DOE/Ames_Laboratory. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Zhicheng Luo, Renfeng Nie, Vy T. Nguyen, Abhranil Biswas, Ranjan K.

Behera, Xun Wu, Takeshi Kobayashi, Aaron Sadow, Bin Wang, Wenyu
Huang, Long Qi. Transition metal-like carbocatalyst. Nature
Communications, 2020; 11 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17909-8 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200826131857.htm

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