Co₃O₄‑Promoted Cerium Oxide Catalyst for Efficient Catalytic N‑Alkylation of Amines with Alcohols

The use of heterogeneous catalysts to generate amine compounds through anaerobic N-alkylation of alcohols via hydrogen transfer strategy is a highly promising synthetic strategy, as it can construct C-N bonds under relatively mild and green conditions. Moreover, amine compounds are widely used in the synthesis of pharmaceutical intermediates, agriculture and fine chemicals. In this work, we successfully constructed a novel Co₃O₄/CeO₂ catalyst using the hydrothermal synthesis method and applied it to the N-alkylation reaction of alcohols, achieving up to 99% of the target product yield with broad substrate scope and high catalyst stability. The Ce³⁺/Ce⁴⁺ redox pairs and oxygen vacancies in the CeO₂ support with highly dispersed Co species synergistically catalyze the hydrogen borrowing process of alcohols and amines to generate secondary amines with high activity and selectivity.