Room temperature aqueous-phase hydrogenation coupling with green hydrogen: Sustainable technologies innovating by efficient Co-CoO_x@NC catalyst derived from N-induced interfacial electron rearrangement

Utilization and storage are the two main themes of green hydrogen. In hydrogen-involved system, development of highly active catalysts to achieve catalytic hydrogenation under mild conditions is a prerequisite for coupling with green hydrogen, so that green hydrogen with low outlet pressure can be directly used as a hydrogen source. To achieve this aim, we developed a high active Co-CoO_x@NC catalyst with metal/metal oxide induced by N-doping. The work function and Bader charge calculations reveal that N-doping can induce interfacial electrons rearrangement to form Co-CoO_x interface on the surface of Co nanoparticles (NPs). The interface is the dual active sites, where Co plays a role in H₂ dissociation and CoO_x can enhance the adsorption and activation of aldehyde compounds. Different from traditional dissimilar metal/oxide interface, the Co-CoO_x interface can effectively shorten hydrogen spillover distance and energy barrier, and thus exhibits high catalytic performance in hydrogenation of a variety of bio-derived aldehydes under aqueous-phase and mild reaction conditions that can couple with green hydrogen.