Ultralow Loading Fe on N-Doped Carbon Nanospheres for Anaerobic Cleavage of C–C Bonds in Biomass Vicinal Diols

The efficient and selective conversion of biomass-derived vicinal diols into high-value-added chemicals represents a pivotal area of research that has garnered substantial interest within the scientific community. In this work, three ultralow loading Fe supports on N-doped carbon nanosphere catalysts (Fe@NC-T) were successfully prepared using the hard template method with acid etching. The selective conversion of vicinal diols into aldehydes, ketones, and amines over the Fe@NC-800 nanosphere catalyst was achieved through an anaerobic cleavage of C–C bonds and successfully utilized autologous hydrogen resources. The exceptional catalytic activity of the Fe@NC-800 nanosphere catalyst may be credited to the presence of highly dispersed Fe species at the active sites, which has been verified through several characterization techniques, control tests, and density functional theory calculations. In addition, the Fe@NC-800 nanosphere catalyst also demonstrated its wide applicability and excellent reusability under the operating conditions. We believe that this study presents an auspicious scheme for the highly selective conversion of vicinal diols into high value-added carbonyl compounds and amine products.