Co-conversion of alkane with another reactant over zeolite catalysts has emerged as a new approach to the long-standing challenge of alkane transformation. With the aid of solid-state NMR spectroscopy and GC-MS analysis, it was found that the co-conversion of propane and methanol can be readily initiated by hydride transfer at temperatures of ≥449 K over the acidic zeolite H-ZSM-5. The formation of ¹³C-labeled methane and singly ¹³C-labeled n-butanes in selective labeling experiments provided the first evidence for the initial hydride transfer from propane to surface methoxy intermediates. The results not only provide new insight into carbocation chemistry of solid acids, but also shed light on the low-temperature transformation of alkanes for industrial applications.

Co-conversion of alkane with another reactant over zeolite catalysts has emerged as a new approach to the long-standing challenge of alkane transformation. With the aid of solid-state NMR spectroscopy and GC-MS analysis, it was found that the co-conversion of propane and methanol can be readily initiated by hydride transfer at temperatures of ≥449 K over the acidic zeolite H-ZSM-5. The formation of ¹³C-labeled methane and singly ¹³C-labeled n-butanes in selective labeling experiments provided the first evidence for the initial hydride transfer from propane to surface methoxy intermediates. The results not only provide new insight into carbocation chemistry of solid acids, but also shed light on the low-temperature transformation of alkanes for industrial applications.

Construction of porous organic polymers (POPs) as asymmetric catalysts remains as an important but challenging task. Herein, we exploit the “bottom-up” strategy to facilely synthesize an α,α,α′,α′-tetraaryl-1,3-dioxolane-4,5-dimethanol (TADDOL)-based chiral porous polymer (TADDOL-CPP) for highly efficient asymmetric catalysis. Constructed through the covalent linkages among the three-dimensional rigid monomers, TADDOL-CPP possesses hierarchical porous structure, high Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area, together with abundant and uniformly-distributed chiral sites. In the presence of [Ti(OiPr)₄], TADDOL-CPP acts as a highly efficient and recyclable catalyst in the asymmetric addition of diethylzinc (Et₂Zn) to aromatic aldehydes. Based on the direct observation of the key intermediates, the reaction mechanism has been revealed by solid-state ¹³C magic-angle spinning (MAS) NMR spectroscopy. In combination with the catalytic testing results, characterization on the working catalyst provides further information for understanding the structure–activity relationship. We suggest that the catalytic activity of TADDOL-CPP is largely affected by the structural rigidity, cooperative catalysis, local chiral environment, and hierarchical porous framework. We expect that the information obtained herein will benefit to the designed synthesis of robust POP catalysts toward practical applications.

A facile five-step strategy has been developed for the enantioselective synthesis of trans-3-substituted proline derivatives with high diasteroselectivity (dr>20:1) and enantioselectivity (up to 97% ee). The key step is the asymmetric organocatalytic Michael addition of nitro esters to α,β-unsaturated aldehydes, which affords the chiral Michael adducts in high yields (up to 96%) and excellent enantioselectivity (up to 99% ee) by using diarylprolinol silyl ether as the organocatalyst.

We report herein for the first time the incorporation of a versatile organocatalyst, 4-(N,N-dimethylamino)pyridine (DMAP), into the network of a nanoporous conjugated polymer (NCP) by the “bottom-up” approach. The resulting DMAP-NCP material possesses highly concentrated and homogeneously distributed DMAP catalytic sites (2.02 mmol g⁻¹). DMAP-NCP also exhibits enhanced stability and permanent porosity due to the strong covalent linkage and the rigidity of the “bottom-up” monomers. As a result, DMAP-NCP shows excellent catalytic activity in the acylation of alcohols with yields of 92–99 %. The DMAP-NCP catalyst could be easily recovered from the reaction mixture and reused in at least 14 consecutive cycles without measurable loss of activity. Moreover, the catalytic acylation reaction could be performed under neat and continuous-flow conditions for at least 536 h of continuous work with the same catalyst activity.

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are an extremely important class of porous materials with many applications. The metal centers in many important MOFs are zinc cations. However, their Zn environments have not been characterized directly by ⁶⁷Zn solid-state NMR (SSNMR) spectroscopy. This is because ⁶⁷Zn (I=5/2) is unreceptive with many unfavorable NMR characteristics, leading to very low sensitivity. In this work, we report, for the first time, a ⁶⁷Zn natural abundance SSNMR spectroscopic study of several representative zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) and MOFs at an ultrahigh magnetic field of 21.1 T. Our work demonstrates that ⁶⁷Zn magic-angle spinning (MAS) NMR spectra are highly sensitive to the local Zn environment and can differentiate non-equivalent Zn sites. The ⁶⁷Zn NMR parameters can be predicted by theoretical calculations. Through the study of MOF-5 desolvation, we show that with the aid of computational modeling, ⁶⁷Zn NMR spectroscopy can provide valuable structural information on the MOF systems with structures that are not well described. Using ZIF-8 as an example, we further demonstrate that ⁶⁷Zn NMR spectroscopy is highly sensitive to the guest molecules present inside the cavities. Our work also shows that a combination of ⁶⁷Zn NMR data and molecular dynamics simulation can reveal detailed information on the distribution and the dynamics of the guest species. The present work establishes ⁶⁷Zn SSNMR spectroscopy as a new tool complementary to X-ray diffraction for solving outstanding structural problems and for determining the structures of many new MOFs yet to come.

An efficient protocol has been developed for the preparation of 2-aminobenzothiazoles via a copper(I)-catalyzed tandem reaction of 2-iodoanilines with isothiocyanates at very low catalyst loadings [typically 50 ppm of copper(I) iodide (CuI)]. A variety of 2-iodoanilines could be cross-coupled with isothiocyanates, affording 2-aminobenzothiazoles in moderate to good yields (49–93%) under the given conditions. The turnover number (TON) of this reaction reaches 67,000 and the reaction could be scaled up, at least, to the gram-scale.

We report a new method for the synthesis of hollow-structured phenylene-bridged periodic mesoporous organosilica (PMO) spheres with a uniform particle size of 100–200 nm using α-Fe₂O₃ as a hard template. Based on this method, the hollow-structured phenylene PMO could be easily functionalized with MacMillan catalyst (H-PhPMO-Mac) by a co-condensation process and a “click chemistry” post-modification. The synthesized H-PhPMO-Mac catalyst has been found to exhibit high catalytic activity (98 % yield, 81 % enantiomeric excess (ee) for endo and 81 % ee for exo) in asymmetric Diels–Alder reactions with water as solvent. The catalyst could be reused for at least seven runs without a significant loss of catalytic activity. Our results have also indicated that hollow-structured PMO spheres exhibit higher catalytic efficiency than solid (non-hollow) PMO spheres, and that catalysts prepared by the co-condensation process and “click chemistry” post-modification exhibit higher catalytic efficiency than those prepared by a grafting method.

The formation of chiral γ-butenolides has been achieved with good yields (up to 90%), high enantioselectivity (up to 91%) and diastereoselectivity (up to 9/1, anti-selective) through an organocatalyzed vinylogous Mukaiyama aldol reaction of 2-(trimethylsilyloxy)furan and aldehydes. A wide range of chiral γ-butenolides was obtained under mild conditions by this methodology.

A new superparamagnetic nanoparticle-supported (S)-diphenylprolinol trimethylsilyl ether (Jørgensen–Hayashi catalyst) was synthesized and applied for the asymmetric Michael addition of aldehydes to nitroalkenes in water, which gives products in moderate to good yields (up to 96%), good enantioselectivity (up to 90% ee) and diastereoselectivities (up to 99:1). The immobilized catalyst could be easily separated from the reaction by an external magnet and recycled for four times without significant loss of catalytic efficiency.

Solid-state ¹³C magic angle spinning (MAS) NMR spectroscopy investigations identified zinc methyl species, formate species, and methoxy species as C₁ surface species formed in methane activation on the zeolite Zn/H-ZSM-5 catalyst at T≤573 K. These C₁ surface species, which are possible intermediates in further transformations of methane, were prepared separately by adsorption of ¹³C-enriched methane, carbon monoxide, and methanol onto zinc-containing catalysts, respectively. Successful isolation of each surface species allowed convenient investigations into their chemical nature on the working catalyst by solid-state ¹³C MAS NMR spectroscopy. The reactivity of zinc methyl species with diverse probe molecules (i.e., water, methanol, hydrochloride, oxygen, or carbon dioxide) is correlated with that of organozinc compounds in organometallic chemistry. Moreover, surface formate and surface methoxy species possess distinct reactivity towards water, hydrochloride, ammonia, or hydrogen as probe molecules. To explain these and other observations, we propose that the C₁ surface species interconvert on zeolite Zn/H-ZSM-5. As implied by the reactivity information, potential applications of methane co-conversion on zinc-containing zeolites might, therefore, be possible by further transformation of these C₁ surface species with rationally designed co-reactants (i.e., probe molecules) under optimized reaction conditions.