Atomically dispersed cobalt–nitrogen–carbon catalysts for efficient oxidative esterification of aromatic alcohols

Designing and synthesizing highly efficient non-noble metal-based catalysts with uniform active sites provide a powerful platform for recognizing real active sites and understanding catalytic reaction mechanisms. Herein, we prepared a series of N-doped graphene-like carbon (NG) intercalated Co-based single/dual-atom catalysts via a hard template-assisted spatial confinement strategy. Comprehensive characterization studies confirmed the atomically dispersed cobalt single atom active sites. The obtained Co SACs@NG-800-50 catalyst exhibits satisfying activity and selectivity for oxidative esterification of benzyl alcohol and other investigated alcohols under mild conditions. The catalyst can effectively activate O2 to generate ˙O2− active species through abundant CoN3 active sites, thus promoting the smooth progress of oxidative esterification of aromatic alcohols. Moreover, the catalyst displays excellent structural stability and recycling durability even after 6 reactions.