Efficient oxidative cyanation of fructose to nitriles over Acidic-MnOx under ambient air pressure

The oxidative cyanation of fructose to nitriles using ammonia and oxygen over heterogeneous catalysts is still challenging due to the insufficient activation of reactants on coordination-saturated metal oxides. In this study, we have developed an acidic manganese oxide (A-MnO x ) catalyst through an anion doping strategy to enhance the aerobic ammoxidation of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) to hydroxymethylfurfural carbonitrile (HMFC). Compared to the commercial MnO 2 , the anion doping strategy induced more coordination-unsaturated Mn and O sites on the A-MnO x catalyst. These coordination-unsaturated Mn and O sites create abundant strong Lewis acid sites, which facilitate the activation of oxygen and HMF. Consequently, the A-MnO x catalyst demonstrated remarkable performance, achieving an 88.3% yield of HMFC with an exceptional selectivity of 96.1%. This performance surpasses that of most previously reported catalysts, underscoring the efficiency of our approach. This study was further extended to such catalytic system to the synthesis of HMFC from fructose with superior catalytic performance.