Mesoporous Metal–Metalloid Amorphous Alloys: The First Synthesis of Open 3D Mesoporous Ni-B Amorphous Alloy Spheres via a Dual Chemical Reduction Method

Yunqing Kang, Joel Henzie, Huajun Gu, Jongbeom Na, Amanullah Fatehmulla, Belqes Saeed A. Shamsan, Abdullah M. Aldhafiri, W. Aslam Farooq, Yoshio Bando, Toru Asahi, Bo Jiang*, Hexing Li, Yusuke Yamauchi

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

34 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Selective hydrogenation of nitriles is an industrially relevant synthetic route for the preparation of primary amines. Amorphous metal–boron alloys have a tunable, glass-like structure that generates a high concentration of unsaturated metal surface atoms that serve as active sites in hydrogenation reactions. Here, a method to create nanoparticles composed of mesoporous 3D networks of amorphous nickel–boron (Ni-B) alloy is reported. The hydrogenation of benzyl cyanide to β-phenylethylamine is used as a model reaction to assess catalytic performance. The mesoporous Ni-B alloy spheres have a turnover frequency value of 11.6 h−1, which outperforms non-porous Ni-B spheres with the same composition. The bottom-up synthesis of mesoporous transition metal–metalloid alloys expands the possible reactions that these metal architectures can perform while simultaneously incorporating more Earth-abundant catalysts.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1906707
JournalSmall
Volume16
Issue number10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020 Mar 1

Keywords

  • 3D materials
  • amorphous alloys
  • mesoporous metal alloys
  • metal–boron alloys
  • nanoarchitectures

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Engineering (miscellaneous)
  • Chemistry(all)
  • Materials Science(all)
  • Biotechnology
  • Biomaterials

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