Magnetic composite of γ-Fe2O3 hollow sphere and palladium doped nitrogen-rich mesoporous carbon as a recoverable catalyst for C–C coupling reactions

Abstract

In this article, palladated-magnetic nitrogen doped porous carbon was prepared from nano magnetic γ-Fe2O3 hollow sphere (h-Fe2O3) with high specific surface area and pore volume. To the purpose, initially h-Fe2O3 was prepared and covered with glucose via hydrothermal treatment with subsequent polymerization of organic shell. The polymerization of melamine-resorcinol–formaldehyde (MRF) was achieved in the presence of Cl-functionalized glucose coated h-Fe2O3 (h-Fe2O3@glu-MRF). Next, the prepared magnetic core–shell hollow sphere was palladated followed by carbonization to yield Pd@h-Fe2O3@C introducing more pores in its structure. The resulted compound, Pd@h-Fe2O3@C, was fully characterized, showing that carbonization process expressively increased the specific surface area. The resulted Pd@h-Fe2O3@C was successfully used for promoting C–C coupling reactions under mild reaction conditions as a heterogeneous catalyst and its activity was compared with some prepared control catalysts. This novel catalyst was magnetically separated simply by a magnet bar and recycled and reused at least in five consecutive runs, without considerable loss of its activity. It is note mentioning that, high recyclability with low Pd leaching are another gains of this protocol.