The highly efficient synthesis of benzoxazole, benzothiazole and benzimidazole has attracted much attention due to their superior biological activities. However, developing environmentally friendly and poisoning-resistant catalysts in heterogeneous catalytic systems remains a critical challenge. Herein, an atomically dispersed Co1/NC catalyst was fabricated by facile pyrolysis of a zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZnCo-ZIF). The Co1/NC catalyst exhibited excellent oxidation catalysis, sulfur-resistance and reusability performance. The mass specific activity (MSA) of Co1/NC was up to 42.0 mol2-PBO molCo−1 h−1, much higher than that of the Co/NC nano-catalyst (15.6 mol2-PBO molCo−1 h−1). Mechanism studies showed that O2 was activated by atomically dispersed Co active species to form 1O2 and ˙O2−, which were responsible for the dehydrogenation of the key imine intermediates to produce 2-phenylbenzoxazole (2-PBO). The current work represents a novel feasible strategy for the synthesis of bioactive heterocyclic compounds using efficient, stable and green heterogeneous catalysts.
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