title: Hydrogenation of nitroarenes into aromatic amines over Ag@BCN colloidal catalysts.
abstract: The present work reports that two-dimension layered ternary boron carbon nitrogen nanosheets can serve as good carriers to support and disperse noble metal nanoparticles. The Ag@BCN colloids have thus been prepared by attaching Ag nanoparticles on the surfaces of BCN nanosheets. The detailed structures of the Ag@BCN samples were investigated by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscope, infrared, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. It is found that the surface NH groups of BCN nanosheets are beneficial for the attachment of Ag nanopaprticles. Compared with the conventional organic capping compounds, the two dimensional planar BCN nanosheets endow the attached nanoparticle with the high active surfaces. Moreover, the hydrogenation of nitroarenes into the corresponding aromatic amines can be highly achieved over Ag@BCN colloids by NaBH4. In particular, the apparent activation energy of the conversion reaction of p-nitroaniline to p-phenylenediamine was found to be 76.0kJ/mol over the Ag@BCN colloids with 3wt% Ag content. Our results may provide a new approach for the design noble metal based composites and find the practical application for the hydrogenation of nitroarenes.
authors.affiliation: College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China; State Key Laboratory of Photocatalysis on Energy and Environment, College of Chemistry, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350002, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoqing
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Qiu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Photocatalysis on Energy and Environment, College of Chemistry, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350002, China.
authors.forename: Qiuwen
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Environment Monitoring and Pollution Control, Collaborative Innovation Center of Atmospheric Environment and Equipment Technology, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science &Technology, Nanjing 210044, China.
authors.forename: MingXia
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Photocatalysis on Energy and Environment, College of Chemistry, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350002, China. Electronic address: cjhuang@fzu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Caijin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Huang
keywords: BCN nanosheets; Colloids; Hydrogenation; Nitroarenes; Nobel metal catalysts