Issue 10, 2024

Synergistic enhancement of electrocatalytic nitroarene hydrogenation over Mo2C@MoS2 heteronanorods with dual active-sites

Abstract

Electrocatalytic hydrogenation (ECH) enables the sustainable production of chemicals under ambient conditions, in which catalysts catering for the different chemisorption of reactants/intermediates are desired but still challenging. Here, Mo2C@MoS2 heteronanorods with dual active-sites are developed to accomplish efficient nitroarene ECH according to our theoretical prediction that the binding of atomic H and nitro substrates would be synergistically strengthened on Mo2C–MoS2 interfaces. They afford high faradaic efficiency (>85%), yield (>78%) and selectivity (>99%) for the reduction of 4-nitrostyrene (4-NS) to 4-vinylaniline (4-VA) in neutral electrolytes, outperforming not only the single-component counterparts of Mo2C nanorods and MoS2 nanosheets, but also recently reported noble-metals. Accordingly, in situ Raman spectroscopy combined with electrochemical tests clarifies the rapid ECH of 4-NS on Mo2C–MoS2 interfaces due to the facilitated elementary steps, quickly refreshing active sites for continuous electrocatalysis. Mo2C@MoS2 further confirms efficient and selective ECH toward functional anilines with other well-retained reducible groups in wide substrate scope, underscoring the promise of dual-site engineering for exploring catalysts.

Graphical abstract: Synergistic enhancement of electrocatalytic nitroarene hydrogenation over Mo2C@MoS2 heteronanorods with dual active-sites

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
09 Nov 2023
Accepted
05 Feb 2024
First published
06 Feb 2024
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2024,15, 3446-3452

Synergistic enhancement of electrocatalytic nitroarene hydrogenation over Mo2C@MoS2 heteronanorods with dual active-sites

W. Zhang, W. Zhang, K. Yu, J. Tan, Y. Tang and Q. Gao, Chem. Sci., 2024, 15, 3446 DOI: 10.1039/D3SC06010A

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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