Bottom-Up Approach Derived Iron and Nitrogen Cofunctionalized Carbon as Efficient Renewable Catalyst for Selective Reduction of Nitroarenes

The non-noble metal and nitrogen cofunctionalized carbon (M–N–C) attract enormous attentions in heterogeneous catalysis. However, the fabrication of the M–N–C systems commonly rely on fossil resource based carbon, while the exploitation of biomass derived materials often suffer from issues such as tedious procedures, complex composition of the biomass and excessive dosage of the dopant precursor. In this study, a direct and large-scale, bottom-up method was developed for the fabrication of the sustainable iron and nitrogen cofunctionalized carbon (FeNC) in a green and sustainable way. The obtained FeNC possessed well-defined structure as well as uniformly distributed iron species. The catalytic results suggested that FeNC could serve as efficient catalyst for the selective reduction of nitroarenes. The FeNx species played an important role, while the N-doped carbon matrix may also involve in the reaction.