Two-Dimensional Metal-Organic Layers for Electrochemical Acceptorless Dehydrogenation of N-Heterocycles

The catalytic acceptorless dehydrogenation (CAD) is an attractive synthetic route to unsaturated compounds because of its high atomic efficiency. Here we report electrochemical acceptorless dehydrogenation of N-heterocycles to obtain quinoline or indole derivatives using metal-organic layer (MOL) catalyst. MOL is the two-dimensional version of metal-organic frameworks (MOF), and it can be constructed on conductive multi-walled carbon nanotubes via facile solvothermal synthesis to overcome the conductivity constraint for MOFs in electrocatalysis. TEMPO-OPO32- was incorporated into the system through a ligand exchange with capping formate on the MOL surface to serve as the active catalytic centers. The hybrid catalyst is efficient in the organic conversion and can be readily recycled and reused.