Gold Nanoparticles Immobilized in Porous Aromatic Frameworks with Abundant Metal Anchoring Sites as Heterogeneous Nanocatalysts

Porous aromatic frameworks (PAFs) with rich metal coordination sites are highly effective support materials for gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), which would not only prevent AuNPs agglomeration but also facilitate mass transfer during the catalytic process. In this work, PAF-160, -161, and -162 bearing diphosphine units are synthesized via the Friedel–Crafts alkylation reaction to act as efficient platforms for AuNPs immobilization. These PAFs possess high surface areas (up to 655 m 2 g –1 ) together with excellent stabilities, and the different linkage lengths between P centers allow more scattered and accessible sites for gold coordination. In the resultant Au-PAFs, AuNPs with uniform sizes are stabilized dispersedly. The catalytic performances of these Au-PAFs are monitored by the reduction of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP), and all materials exhibit excellent catalytic activities on the reduction of 4-NP, especially Au-PAF-162 with the apparent rate constant ( k app ) up to 0.019 s –1 . Additionally, the reductions of various nitroarenes with different functional groups are explored and all Au-PAFs can convert most nitroaromatic derivatives to the corresponding arylamines with high conversions of 99%, in which the reaction mechanism is also proposed. Furthermore, a continuous catalytic device with Au-PAF-160 catalyst is explored, and Au-PAF-160 can convert 1-chloro-4-nitrobenzene, 2,6-dichoronitrobenzene and 1-chloro-2,4-dinitrobenzene into the corresponding amines in sequence in the continuous flow catalytic experiments. This work has enriched the variety of porous materials for noble metal immobilization and promotes their applications in heterogeneous catalysis.