Recyclable Co-Ru nanoparticles for the transfer hydrogenation of aromatics with alcohols

Transfer hydrogenation is an attractive method to reduce a variety of unsaturated compounds, offering a safer and milder alternative to the pressurized hydrogen gas process. Transfer hydrogenation of arene compounds is quite difficult, especially those that do not bear polar groups. In this paper, we disclose the transfer hydrogenation of a variety of aromatic compounds using Co-Ru alloy nanoparticles and 2-heptanol. Although the nanoparticles are quite sensitive to certain functional groups, a variety of substrates are efficiently reduced, and the nanoparticles are found to still be very active even after recycling for ten consecutive reactions.