Ateeq Rahman, Mathew Mupa and Courtie Mahamadi
Bindura University of Science Education, Zimbabwe
Posters-Accepted Abstracts: J Pet Environ Engineering
Microporous and Mesoporous silica catalysts, MCM-41 derived from zeolite type catalysts are easily synthesized in lab scale and commercially available SiO2 have applications in reduction reactions. Ni-B silica catalysts denoted as Cat A are characterized by XRD, IR, SEM, BET surface area and chemisorption studies. Nickel boride generated in situ on silica is found to be a super-active catalyst for reduction of nitro aromatics, aldehydes, ketones, alkenes, phenols and in reductive amination of aldehydes and ketones at low temperatures whereas Ni-SiO2 Cat A and Pd-(II) MCM-41 denoted as Cat B exhibited catalytic activity for reduction of nitroaromatics, aldehdyes and hydrodehalogenation reactions. Ni-Al hydrotalcite is a solid base catalyst active for a variety of organic reactions i.e., oxidation of alcohols to carbonyl compounds and reduction of aldehydes to alcohols which exhibited as redox catalysts. From TPR characterization it is evident that Ni in association with oxide of aluminium is active oxidation of alcohols to carbonyl compounds in molecular oxygen. The IR, XRD, DTTGA characterization of Ni HT catalysts gave excellent results which confirms that Ni HT active catalysts for organic transformations. The catalysts showed reusability after the reaction. The efficient catalytic activity was exhibited for Ni-SiO2, Ni HT and Pd catalysts for reduction reactions which are reusable, atom economy, reproducibility and environmentally friendly catalysts. Comparative study of Ni-SiO2 and Pd (II) MCM-41 catalysts is presented in this article.