Niobium-substituted group III nitride nanocages: A series of inorganic single superatom catalysts for Suzuki reaction

Abstract

Suzuki coupling reaction, a widely used reaction for C-C bond formation in pharmaceutical synthesis, still largely depends on the homogeneous Pd catalysts that suffer from high cost, difficult recovery, and metal residue issues. In this work, a new type of single superatom catalysts (SSCs) were designed by substituting a Nb atom for one M atom of M12N12 (M = B, Al, and Ga) to form a palladium-like NbN superatom unit within these SSCs, namely NbN@M11N11 (M = B, Al, and Ga). Our results demonstrate that these catalysts exhibit remarkable catalytic activity for Suzuki reaction, and therein, NbN@B11N11 exhibits superior catalytic performance to the conventional Pd(PPh3)2 catalyst. Furthermore, an inverse size-activity relationship has been observed for NbN@Bn-1Nn-1 (n = 12, 16, 24), where smaller nanocage size results in superior catalytic performance. This study confirms that constructing a Pd-like superatom subunit in group III nitride nanocages can realize new catalysts for Suzuki reaction and thus provides novel pathways for designing and synthesizing SSCs.