Palladium Nanoparticles Anchored on Amine-Functionalized Silica Nanotubes as a Highly Effective Catalyst

Abstract

The catalytic performance of supported heterogeneous catalysts is mainly dependent on their constitutive components including active species and supports. Therefore, the design and development of effective catalysts with synergistic enhanced effect between active sites and supports is of great significance. A facile in situ reduction approach to prepare amine-functionalized silica nanotubes (ASNTs)-supported Pd (ASNTs@Pd) composite catalyst is demonstrated in this article. Benefiting from the intrinsic physical and chemical properties of the ASNTs support and deposited Pd nanoparticles (NPs), the as-prepared ASNTs@Pd catalyst exhibits superior catalytic activity, stability, and reusability toward nitroarene reduction reactions. For catalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol, the turnover frequency (TOF) is as high as 313.5 min –1, which is much higher than that of commercial Pd/C (5.0 wt %) and many noble-metal based catalysts reported in the last 5 years. In addition, a high TOF of 57.4 min –1 was also realized by ASNTs@Pd catalyst for the Suzuki coupling reaction.