Tuning acid–base cooperativity to create bifunctional fiber catalysts for one-pot tandem reactions in water

Abstract

Herein, we described a simple and straightforward route to create bifunctional fiber catalysts for the one-pot cooperative catalysis. The materials were combined with amine base functions and Brønsted acid functions on the commercially available polyacrylonitrile fiber, and the resulted fiber samples during the preparation and utilization processes were characterized in detail by various detection techniques. Moreover, the strategy permits easy tailoring of the acid–base properties by tuning the cooperativity of the acid–base proportions. The optimized fiber material enabled the one-pot cooperative catalysis for the tandem deprotection-Knoevenagel reactions with good yields in water over 12 cycles, and was effectively enlarged to the gram-scale in a spinning basket reactor with potential application values.