Probing the mechanism of benzaldehyde reduction to chiral hydrobenzoin on the CNT surface under near-UV light irradiation

Green Chem., 2016, 18,1482-1487
DOI: 10.1039/C5GC02168E, Paper

Yunwei Wang, Pengju Ren, Xianmo Gu, Xiaodong Wen, Yingyong Wang, Xiangyun Guo, Eric R. Waclawik, Huaiyong Zhu, Zhanfeng Zheng
For the first time, metal-free CNTs is found to be an effective photocatalyst working under near-UV light (400 nm)

Probing the mechanism of benzaldehyde reduction to chiral hydrobenzoin on the CNT surface under near-UV light irradiation

Yunwei Wang,^a   Pengju Ren,^ab   Xianmo Gu,^a   Xiaodong Wen,^ab  Yingyong Wang,^a   Xiangyun Guo,^a   Eric R. Waclawik,^c  Huaiyong Zhu^c and   Zhanfeng Zheng*^a  

*

Corresponding authors

^a

State Key Laboratory of Coal Conversion, Institute of Coal Chemistry, CAS, Taiyuan, China
E-mail: zfzheng@sxicc.ac.cn
Fax: +86-351-4040605

^b

National Energy Center for Coal to Liquids, Synfuels China Co., Ltd, Huairou District, Beijing, China

^c

School of Chemistry, Physics and Mechanical Engineering, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

Green Chem., 2016,18, 1482-1487

DOI: 10.1039/C5GC02168E
Received 13 Sep 2015, Accepted 21 Dec 2015

http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2016/GC/C5GC02168E?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2FGC+%28RSC+-+Green+Chem.+latest+articles%29#!divAbstract



Metal-free CNTs exhibit high activity (conversion rate 99.6%, 6 h) towards the synthesis of chiral hydrobenzoin from benzaldehyde under near-UV light irradiation (320–400 nm). The CNT structure before and after the reaction, the interaction between the molecule and the CNT surface, the intermediate products, the substitution effect and the influence of light on the reaction were examined using various techniques. A photo-excited conduction electron transfer (PECET) mechanism for the photocatalytic reduction using CNTs has been proposed. This finding provides a green photocatalytic route for the production of hydrobenzoin and highlights a potential photocatalytic application of CNTs.






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