Selective reduction of aromatic halonitroarene to corresponding amine with Ru-gC3N4 as a catalyst in presence of sodium hypophosphite as a hydrogen source

Abstract

This study reports an efficient heterogeneous catalyst Ru-gC3N4 (Ru-GCN) developed for the selective hydrogen transfer reduction reaction of nitroarenes to the corresponding amine. It helps to avoid multistep reaction in the field of organic synthesis. The catalyst Ru-gC3N4 shows excellent activity under the mild reaction parameters via using sodium hypophosphite as a hydrogen source and can be effective after many cycles without significant change in activity. The simply separable and recyclable heterogeneous Ru-gC3N4 catalyst is straight forward to operate, non-toxic, eco-friendly and at the same time replaces the comprehensive use of high pressurized hydrogen cylinder. Various types of material characterization and spectral methods such as PXRD, FTIR, SEM, TEM, XPS, and TGA are used to characterize the Ru-gC3N4 catalyst. All these properties such as good reusability and retained activity make our process sustainable and environmentally friendly. Aiming towards industrial potentiality, a gram scale experiment was reported using the developed protocol.

Keywords

• Heterogeneous catalyst
• Hydrogen transfer reaction
• Graphitic carbon nitride, Sodium hypophosphite
• Ruthenium catalyst