Ecological rehabilitation of degraded mining sites is necessary and possible by reintroducing pioneer manganese-accumulating plants. From the Mn-enriched biomass, our group has developed a process to recycle plant-derived metallic elements into innovative polymetallic catalysts, called Eco-Mn ecocatalysts. These first biosourced Mn-rich catalysts have demonstrated competitive catalytic activity in green organic synthesis. To expand the use of these catalysts in organic chemistry, their catalytic activity has to be correlated with their structure and properties. Thus, we put forward for the first time an extensive structural study of Eco-Mn catalysts, including composition analysis, crystalline structure analysis, and chemical environment around active catalytic center (manganese and iron) analysis. Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations support our conclusions. Finally, this study highlights the peculiar vegetal footprint of Eco-Mn catalysts.

通过重新引入先驱性锰积累植物，有必要对退化的矿区进行生态修​​复，而且有可能实现。从富含锰的生物质中，我们小组开发了一种将植物来源的金属元素再循环到创新的多金属催化剂（称为Eco-Mn生态催化剂）中的方法。这些首批生物来源的富锰催化剂已证明在绿色有机合成中具有竞争性催化活性。为了扩大这些催化剂在有机化学中的用途，必须将它们的催化活性与其结构和性质相关联。因此，我们首次提出了对生态锰催化剂的广泛结构研究，包括组成分析，晶体结构分析以及活性催化中心（锰和铁）分析周围的化学环境。密度泛函理论（DFT）计算支持我们的结论。最后，这项研究突出了Eco-Mn催化剂独特的植物足迹。