Published on Advanced Materials (25 January 2021)

Author(s): Jingjie Ge, Peiqun Yin, Ye Chen, Hongfei Cheng, Jiawei Liu, Bo Chen, Chaoliang Tan, Peng‐Fei Yin, Hong‐Xing Zheng, Qiang‐Qiang Li, Shuangming Chen, Wenjie Xu, Xiaoqian Wang, Geng Wu, Rongbo Sun, Xiang‐Huan Shan, Xun Hong, Hua Zhang*

Abstract

Heterogeneous noble‐metal‐based catalysis plays an essential role in the production of fine chemicals. Rh‐based catalysts are one of the most active candidates for indole synthesis. However, it is still highly desired to develop heterogeneous Rh‐based catalysts with high activity and selectivity. In this work, a general, facile wet‐chemical method is reported to synthesize ultrathin amorphous/crystalline heterophase Rh and Rh‐based bimetallic alloy nanosheets (NSs), including RhCu, RhZn, and RhRu. Impressively, the amorphous/crystalline heterophase Rh NSs exhibit enhanced catalytic activity toward the direct synthesis of indole compared to the crystalline counterpart. Importantly, the obtained amorphous/crystalline heterophase RhCu alloy NSs can further enhance the selectivity to indole of >99.9% and the conversion is 100%. This work demonstrates the importance of phase engineering and metal alloying in the rational design and synthesis of tandem heterogeneous catalysts toward fine chemical synthesis.

Read more: https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202006711