N,S‐Doped Ordered Mesoporous Carbon: An Effective Catalyst for the Formylation of Anilines and Stabilization of Pd Nanoparticles to Catalyze the Hydrogenation of Nitroarenes

Abstract

N,S‐Doped highly ordered mesoporous carbon (N,S‐doped OMC) material was constructed by the nanocasting methodology using egg yolk with a high content of amino acids as a carbon precursor and SBA‐15 as a hard template, followed by carbonization at 500 °C under an N2 atmosphere, and then aqueous alkaline‐induced removal of the silica moiety of the SBA‐15 template. Prepared N,S‐doped OMC material efficiently catalyzed the formylation of various substituted anilines using DMF as a formylating agent in water, to afford N‐formylaniline derivatives in high to excellent yields. Also, as‐prepared N,S‐doped OMC was used to immobilize and stabilize the Pd nanoparticles in order to synthesize Pd@OMC material, which was used as an efficient catalyst for the hydrogenation of nitroaromatic compounds to the corresponding aniline derivatives. Nitroaromatic compounds are considered to be highly toxic water contaminant compounds, and their removal from wastewater by the hydrogenation is an interesting method. Furthermore, Pd@OMC catalyzed one‐pot tandem hydrogenation of nitrobenzene/formylation reactions was investigated, which gave corresponding N‐formyl aniline in high yield. Synthesized OMC and Pd@OMC were characterized using X‐ray diffraction (XRD), Brunauer‐Emmett‐Teller (BET), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy‐dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy (EDS), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis.