Modified Nanocarbons for Catalysis

Abstract

Nanocarbons represent useful scaffolds in the preparation of last generation nanostructured catalysts, and their chemical functionalization through covalent or non-covalent modification is becoming an important tool for introducing well-distributed anchoring points and, in the meantime, could be the first step toward the assembling of hybrid nanostructured materials with a hierarchical order. In this Review are reported synthesis and catalytic applications of chemically modified nanocarbons such as fullerene, carbon nanotubes, graphene, nanohorns and nanodiamonds in organocatalytic and metal-based (metal nanoparticles, organometallic complexes) reactions, covering major chemical reactions encompassing, the oxidation of alcohols, aldehydes, olefins, and silanes, hydrogenation reactions of aldehydes, ketones, and alkenes, dehydrogenative coupling of silanes, C−C coupling reactions, epoxidation of alkenes, CO2 fixation into cyclic carbonates, and asymmetric reactions, among others.