Metal-Organic Framework-Templated Porous Carbon for Highly Efficient Catalysis: The Critical Role of Pyrrolic Nitrogen Species.

Metal-free catalysts are of great importance and alternative candidates to conventional metal-based catalysts for many reactions. Herein, several types of metal-organic frameworks have been exploited as templates/precursors to afford porous carbon materials with various nitrogen dopant forms and contents, degrees of graphitization, porosities, and surface areas. Amongst these materials, the PCN-224-templated porous carbon material optimized by pyrolysis at 700 °C (denoted as PCN-224-700) is composed of amorphous carbon coated with well-defined graphene layers, offering a high surface area, hierarchical pores, and high nitrogen content (mainly, pyrrolic nitrogen species). Remarkably, as a metal-free catalyst, PCN-224-700 exhibits a low activation energy and superior activity to most metallic catalysts in the catalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol to 4-aminophenol. Theoretical investigations suggest that the content and type of the nitrogen dopant play crucial roles in determining the catalytic performance and that the pyrrolic nitrogen species makes the dominant contribution to this activity, which explains the excellent efficiency of the PCN-224-700 catalyst well.

New members in the Ni(n+1)(QO3)nX2 family: unusual 3D network based on Ni4ClO3 cubane-like clusters in Ni7(TeO3)6Cl2.

Three new members in the family of nickel(II) tellurium(IV)/selenium(IV) oxyhalides generally formulated as Ni(n+1)(QO3)nX2 (Q = Te, X = Cl, n = 6, 10; Q = Se, X = Br, n = 4) have been synthesized by solid-state reactions of NiX2, QO2, and NiO (or Ni2O3) at high temperature. The structure of Ni7(TeO3)6Cl2 features a novel 3D network based on Ni4ClO3 cubane-like clusters with Te atoms located at the cavities of the network. Ni4ClO3 clusters are interconnected into a hexagonal layer through additional O...O edges. The neighboring two layers are further interconnected, via sharing of common Ni(II) atoms, into a novel 3D network. The 3D open framework of Ni5(SeO3)4Br2 is built from 2D nickel(II) oxybromide layers bridged by Se and additional Ni atoms. The structure of Ni11(TeO3)10Cl2 features a condensed 3D network based on NiO5Cl, NiO6, and NiO5 polyhedra interconnected via corner and edge sharing, as well as O-Te-O bridges. The results of magnetic property measurements indicate that all three compounds display antiferromagnetic interactions between nickel(II) centers.