Chinese Journal of Catalysis ›› 2021, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (11): 1983-1991.DOI: 10.1016/S1872-2067(21)63834-2

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Water-involving transfer hydrogenation and dehydrogenation of N-heterocycles over a bifunctional MoNi4 electrode

Mengyang Lia,c,†, Cuibo Liua,†, Yi Huanga, Shuyan Hana, Bing Zhanga,b,*()   

  1. aDepartment of Chemistry, School of Science, Institute of Molecular Plus, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
    bFrontiers Science Center for Synthetic Biology (Ministry of Education), Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Optoelectronic Sciences Tianjian University, Tianjin 300072, China
    cCollege of Chemistry, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450001, Henan, China
  • Received:2021-02-26 Revised:2021-02-26 Accepted:2021-05-04 Online:2021-11-18 Published:2021-05-18
  • Contact: Bing Zhang
  • About author:*Tel: +86-22-27406140; Fax: +86-22-27403475; E-mail: bzhang@tju.edu.cn
    Bing Zhang (Department of Chemistry, School of Science, Tianjin University) received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2007 (with Prof. Yi Xie). He carried out postdoctoral research at the University of Pennsylvania (July 2007 to July 2008, with Prof. Ritesh Agarwal) and worked as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces (August 2008 to July 2009, with Dayang Wang). Currently, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), a senior member of the Chinese Chemical Society, and a professor at Tianjin University. He mainly focuses on the controlled chemical transformation synthesis of designed targeted nanomaterials for water splitting and water-involved transfer hydrogenation reactions. In 2020, he joined the Editorial Board of the Chinese Journal of Catalysis.First author contact:These authors contributed equally to this work.
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China(21871206);National Natural Science Foundation of China(22001192)

Abstract:

A room-temperature electrochemical strategy for hydrogenation (deuteration) and reverse dehydrogenation of N-heterocycles over a bifunctional MoNi4 electrode is developed, which includes the hydrogenation of quinoxaline using H2O as the hydrogen source with 80% Faradaic efficiency and the reverse dehydrogenation of hydrogen-rich 1,2,3,4-tetrahydroquinoxaline with up to 99% yield and selectivity. The in situ generated active hydrogen atom (H*) is plausibly involved in the hydrogenation of quinoxaline, where a consecutive hydrogen radical coupled electron transfer pathway is proposed. Notably, the MoNi4 alloy exhibits efficient quinoxaline hydrogenation at an overpotential of only 50 mV, owing to its superior water dissociation ability to provide H* in alkaline media. In situ Raman tests indicate that the NiII/NiIII redox couple can promote the dehydrogenation process, representing a promising anodic alternative to low-value oxygen evolution. Impressively, electrocatalytic deuteration is easily achieved with up to 99% deuteration ratios using D2O. This method is capable of producing a series of functionalized hydrogenated and deuterated quinoxalines.

Key words: Electrocatalysis, Transfer hydrogenation, Deuteration, Water as the hydrogen source, Bifunctional electrode