Magnetic field-induced spin-related effects promote efficient low-temperature transfer hydrogenation over carbon-encapsulated catalysts

Thermocatalysis, the mainstream approach relative to photocatalysis and electrocatalysis, drives reactions by employing catalysts to lower activation energies with thermal energy. However, thermocatalysis presents issues of inefficient heat transfer and limited reaction performance. Magnetic induction heating (MIH) is a promising thermocatalytic strategy. This study employs a carbon-encapsulated Fe–Ni alloy (Ni–Fe@C) for the catalytic hydrogenation of p‑chloronitrobenzene (p‑CNB) under MIH. The results show that magnetic induction heating generates thermal effects under alternating magnetic field (AMF) conditions, whereas thermal-control experiments demonstrate that thermal effects alone cannot fully account for the observed catalytic enhancement. Experimental characterizations further reveal a close association between spin-related electronic characteristics and the AMF-induced catalytic enhancement, while spin-constrained DFT calculations show that changing the spin configuration affects p-CNB adsorption and reaction barriers. Under mild MIH conditions (35 °C, 20 min), the catalyst achieved 99.9% p-CNB conversion, significantly outperforming conventional heating at 101.1 °C (60.1%). This work demonstrates a “magnetic catalysis” strategy for efficient hydrogenation under mild conditions. Heat-driven catalysis can suffer from poor heat transfer and limited performance. A carbon-coated iron–nickel catalyst uses magnetic fields and spin effects to enable efficient hydrogenation under mild conditions.