Insights into the catalytic potential of a rationally designed magnetic boron nitride nanosheet supported nickel catalyst for the efficient synthesis of 1,4-dihydropyridines

Abstract

Considering the unprecedented attributes of two-dimensional nanomaterials, the present report discloses the fabrication of a novel magnetic boron nitride nanosheet based nickel nanocatalyst (h-BN@Fe₃O₄@APTES@TPC@Ni) through a covalent bonding approach. In order to certify the successful synthesis of the catalyst, various advanced microscopic and spectroscopic techniques, including TEM, SEM, FT-IR, XRD, EDS, ED-XRF and VSM, were employed. The developed h-BN@Fe₃O₄@APTES@TPC@Ni catalytic agent acts as a promising candidate to deliver various pharmaceutically relevant 1,4-dihydropyridine scaffolds using aryl aldehydes, dimedone, ethyl acetoacetate and ammonium acetate as reacting species. The devised methodology is accompanied with noteworthy benefits, including mild reaction conditions, wide substrate scope, excellent products yield and short reaction time. Besides this, facile magnetic retrievability and remarkable reusability of the catalyst for six successive runs without any appreciable loss in catalytic efficacy are the additional factors that make this protocol worthwhile.