Anchoring dye onto 1D Nb2O5 in cooperation with TEMPO for the selective photocatalytic aerobic oxidation of amines

Visible light-driven photocatalysis over semiconductors has emerged as one of the most desired strategies for animating diverse selective chemical transformations. Herein, one-dimensional (1D) Nb2O5 nanorods with a specific surface area of 264 m(2).g(-1) were synthesized via a straightforward hydrothermal method. Thereafter, an efficient visible light photocatalyst was constructed by in-situ anchoring of alizarin red S (ARS) onto the Nb2O5 nanorods to afford ARS-Nb2O5. Resultantly, the ARS-Nb2O5 nanorods can facilitate the selective aerobic oxidation of amines into imines, affording about twice of the result over 3D hierarchical Nb2O5. Notably, 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-N-oxyl (TEMPO) could synchronize the intricate electron and proton transfers between ARS-Nb2O5 nanorods, amines, and superoxide (O-2(center dot-)). In most cases, the green light-driven primary and secondary amines into imines could be completed with about 95% selectivity within 2 h. This work highlights the dimension of designing semiconductor materials to anchor visible light-active molecules for selective oxidation reactions under benign conditions.