Chinese Journal of Catalysis ›› 2026, Vol. 89: 102-126.DOI: 10.1016/S1872-2067(26)65142-X

• Review • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Modulating the oxidative reactivity of the metal active oxygen moieties by Lewis acid for catalysis

Guangjian Liao, Wenbo Lv, Zhichao Wang, Zhuqi Chen, Guochuan Yin()   

  1. College of Chemistry and Chemical engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China
  • Received:2026-03-10 Accepted:2026-04-16 Online:2026-10-18 Published:2026-09-01
  • Contact: *E-mail:gyin@hust.edu.cn(G. Yin).
  • About author:Dr. Guochuan Yin (School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology) received B.S. degree from Zhejiang University in 1990, and Ph.D. from Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1998. He joined Kyushu University in Japan as a JSPS follow in 1999, worked as a postdoc in University of Kansas, USA in 2001, and finally back to China in 2008 as a professor in Huazhong University of Science and Technology. His research covers homogeneous catalytic oxidations, C-H activation, biomass utilizations, and wastewater treatment, and most recently focuses on Lewis acid promoted catalysis by redox metal ions and complexes for homogeneous oxidation and C-H activation. He has published more than 120 peer-reviewed papers.
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China(22472063)

Abstract:

Bimetallic and polymetallic catalysis play the significant roles in versatile biological and chemical oxidation processes, however, their synergistic mechanisms, typically for these biological and heterogeneous oxidations, mostly remain vague due to the complexity of biological system and heterogeneous catalysis. Fundamentally, biological, heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysis obey the same chemical principles; accordingly, these vague synergistic mechanisms may be elucidated with homogeneous models. Indeed, since last 1990s, it has attracted much attention to investigate how the second metal ions functioning as Lewis acid (LA) to modulate the oxidative reactivity of the metal active oxygen moieties with synthetic models, and LA-modulated catalysis by redox catalysts has also been explored as well in homogeneous oxidations. This review summarizes the state of art in this field, and we hope these knowledges could help the understandings of bimetallic and polymetallic catalysis happening in both biological and chemical oxidations, thus benefit related catalyst designs for a better life.

Key words: Lewis acid, Cocatalyst, Oxidation, Synergistic mechanism, Metal active oxygen moieties