Porphyrin-MOF-derived carbon-encapsulated copper as a selective and leaching resistant catalyst for the hydrogenation of nitriles

Background: Designing high-selective and low-cost catalysts for the selective hydrogenation of nitriles to high value-added amines is important and challenging. Methods: Herein, a non-noble metal Cu@NC-ZrO(2 )catalyst was prepared by simple pyrolysis using PCN-222(Cu) MOF as the precursor. Significant findings: Under lower temperature pyrolysis, the small Cu nanoparticles (NPs) and abundant Cu-N-x active sites were uniformly embedded in the N-doped support and the produced catalyst retains the mesoporous structure of PCN-222(Cu), which are beneficial for catalytic performance. The Cu@NC-ZrO2-600 catalyst was found to be economic and efficient for the selective hydrogenation of benzonitrile to benzylamine, and the selectivity and conversion can be up to 100% and 95%, respectively. Moreover, due to the encapsulation of Cu nanoparticles in the support N-doped carbon matrix, this catalyst showed outstanding stability of resistance to leaching.