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Magnetic gold nanocatalyst (nanocat-Fe–Au): catalytic applications for the oxidative esterification and hydrogen transfer reactions
Citation:
Gawande, M., A. Rathi, J. Tucek, K. Safarova, N. Bundaleski, O. Teodoro, L. kvitek, R. Varma, AND R. Zboril. Magnetic gold nanocatalyst (nanocat-Fe–Au): catalytic applications for the oxidative esterification and hydrogen transfer reactions. GREEN CHEMISTRY. Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, Uk, 16(9):4019-4430, (2014).
Impact/Purpose:
Submitted for publication to the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) journal, Green Chemistry.
Description:
An efficient and sustainable protocol is described for the oxidative esterification of aldehydes and the reduction of aromatic nitro compounds that uses magnetically separable and reusable maghemite-supported gold nanocatalyst (nanocat-Fe-Au) under mild conditions. The complex chemical, morphological, structural and size analyses, including e.g. XPS, HRTEM, in-field Mössbauer spectroscopy and HRTEM, revealed that the hybrid material is composed of well-defined stoichiometric maghemite support (20-30 nm) decorated with ultrasmall (5-6 nm) gold nanoparticles. The hybrid catalytic system containing 4 wt% of nanogold has been generated using simple impregnation methods in aqueous medium from readily available starting materials and was recycled five times without any significant loss in catalytic activity; high yields, 40-95% and 83-94% for oxidative esterification and reduction reactions, respectively, were obtained.