Sodium laurate-assisted CeO2 nanoparticles as highly efficient and recyclable catalysts for cyanosilylation reaction

Abstract Cyanosilylation of aromatic aldehydes has always been a promising reaction in the organic synthesis. Herein, we use sodium laurate (SL) as capping agent to synthesize CeO2 nanoparticles (NPs) with different morphologies and sizes, which are adopted as catalysts for the cyanosilylation reaction at room temperature. The obtained polyhedron-shaped CeO2 NPs with an average size of 10 nm are proved to have rich oxygen defects and abundant Lewis/Bronsted acidic sites, exhibiting excellent catalytic properties. The reaction can be rapidly completed in 1 h in heptane and 0.75 h under solvent-free conditions, achieving a high yield of over 99%. More importantly, the as-prepared catalysts possess outstanding recyclability that the reaction still keeps a high yield of over 98% in the 5th cycle. Density functional theory calculation is further employed to demonstrate SL grafted on CeO2 can greatly suppress the adsorption of hydrogen cyanide on the catalyst, thereby accelerating the reaction process.