Strongly coupled Mn3O4–porous organic polymer hybrid: a robust, durable and potential nanocatalyst for alcohol oxidation reactions

Karnekanti Dhanalaxmi a, Ramana Singurua, Sudipta K. Kundub, Benjaram Mahipal Reddya, Asim Bhaumikb and John Mondal*a
aInorganic and Physical Chemistry Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Uppal Road, Hyderabad 500 007, India. E-mail: johncuchem@gmail.com; johnmondal@iict.res.in
bDepartment of Materials Science, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Kolkata-700032, India

Received 18th March 2016 , Accepted 30th March 2016

First published on 1st April 2016


Abstract

Herein we describe a novel strategy for noble-metal-free Mn3O4@POP (porous organic polymer) hybrid synthesis by encapsulation of Mn3O4-NP in the interior cavity of a porous organic polymer which exhibited enhanced catalytic activity and stability for oxidation of diverse activated and nonactivated alcohols relative to the conventional catalysts to demonstrate the benefits of such a nanoarchitecture in heterogeneous nanocatalysis. The use of a non precious catalyst, tremendous recyclability (upto 15 catalytic runs) and exceptional stability make our system innovative in nature, addressing all the profound challenges in the noble-metal-free heterogeneous catalysts development community.


Metal NPs dispersed on support materials with a high surface area have emerged as growing research interest in petroleum refining, fine chemical production and some promising catalytic applications with the exposure of a high fraction of accessible atoms on the surface.1,2 However, development of this nanocatalysis research area for practical applications has been limited by some obdurate associated problems owing to the uncontrollable growth and aggregation of metal nanoparticles, detachment of metal nanoparticles from supports resulting in a decrease in catalytic activity and structural deformation in a single use in harsh reaction conditions. During the past few decades, widespread efforts have been adopted for homogenous dispersion and encapsulation of metal or metal oxide nanoparticles on high surface area based nanoporous materials in order to increase catalyst stability thereby avoiding metal leaching and agglomeration with successive improvement of catalytic performance.3–5 In contrast with the other functionalized porous materials like metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), porous organic polymers (POPs) have attracted an ever-increasing demand as a promising functionalized support for catalytically active particles owing to their easily tuneable structural integrity by changing straightforward effective synthesis strategy and selection of monomers, well-defined three dimensional (3D) rigid symmetric skeletons with exceptional robustness to heat, moisture, acid and base.6–8 Very recently, POP-supported metal or metal oxide nanoparticles have been also employed as heterogeneous nanocatalyst for coupling,9 hydrogenation,10 oxidation11 and photocatalytic reactions.12

Selective oxidation of alcohols to aldehydes or ketones has been considered as the most important chemical transformation for construction of a diverse range of important intermediates and fine chemical products in industry and pharmaceuticals. Luis and co workers reported microwave-assisted selective oxidation of 1-phenyl ethanol in water with Au-NPs and Pd-NPs immobilized onto polymeric backbone which is modified with ionic liquid like moieties.13 Solvent free aerobic oxidation of alcohol was performed with Pd-NPs supported on titanate nanobelts by Lu et al.14 Magnetically recyclable core–shell Pd nanocatalyst was designed by Hyeon et al. for conducting oxidation of various primary and secondary alcohols to the corresponding aldehydes and ketones.15 Photocatalytic dehydrogenation of alcohol was achieved by MOF based Pd/TiO2@MIL-101 (ref. 16) and Au–Pd@ZrO2 catalysts.17 Oxidation of 1-phenyl ethanol were also achieved employing hydroxyapatite supported palladium nanoclusters and zeolite-supported Pd nanoparticles having mean diameter 2.8 nm.18 Pd cluster@silica core–shell nanospheres was designed by Dai research group to carry out oxidation of aromatic alcohols. Graphene supported palladium nanoparticles exhibited excellent catalytic activity in solvent-free alcohol oxidation reaction.19 Although some advancement in catalytic oxidation of alcohols has been achieved but some disadvantages in most of these methods are still associated with the tedious processing steps, use of expensive noble metal catalyst (mainly Pd and Au), high catalyst loading, low stability of catalyst and use of large excess of base additives. In addition, a limited set of literature survey reports demonstrated that Co3O4–N@C,20 nano Fe3O4@APTES@Ni(OH)2,21 Fe3O4@MIL-101(Cr),22 Co@C–N700 (ref. 23) non noble metal catalysts have been employed for alcohol oxidation reactions. A hydrotalcite-supported Mn oxide has been reported as an efficient heterogeneous catalyst for aerobic alcohol oxidation by Kaneda et al.24

Manganese oxides especially Mn3O4 have received a considerable interest as energy-storage material for anodes of lithium-ion batteries, promising sensor material for detecting volatile organic compounds and catalysts for oxidation reactions owing to their easy availability, low toxicity, low cost, high durability, polymorphism and coexistence of mix-valence.25,26 Herein we demonstrate encapsulation of Mn3O4 NP in the interior cavity of nitrogen rich three dimension porous organic polymer by facile two-step liquid-phase procedure through strong electronic interaction between N-rich POP and manganese center of Mn(OAc)2 to obtain a new non-precious hybrid material Mn3O4@POP. Our finding reveals potential application of Mn3O4@POP material as a robust nanocatalyst for oxidation of diverse range of primary, secondary and α,β-unsaturated nonactivated alkanols. The designed nanocatalyst exhibited enhancement in catalytic performance with tremendous recyclability (upto 15th catalytic run) for oxidation of diverse alkanols relative to the conventional catalysts including Mn3O4@SiO2, Mn3O4@TiO2, Mn3O4@Al2O3 and Mn3O4@C to demonstrate the benefits of such nanoarchitecture in heterogeneous nanocatalysis.

Triazine based N-rich porous organic polymer (POP) was synthesized by non aqueous polymerization of 2,4,6-triallyoxy-1,3,5-triazine with cross linker divinyl benzene under hydrothermal condition in presence of azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN) radical initiator. The dark brown color Mn3O4@POP hybrid was obtained after irregular growth of Mn3O4 nuclei on POP surface followed by solvothermal technique (Fig. 1A) in presence of Mn(OAc)2 and NH3 solution. N and O-atoms from each 1,3,5-triazine organic moiety coordinates to the Mn(II) ions strongly and then during this process, irregular growth of Mn3O4 nuclei along the c axis in the direction of 001 plane leading to the formation of needle shape was observed on POP surface via heterogeneous nucleation which is supported by Mn3O4@N-doped graphene hybrid by Shi Zhang Qiao et al.25 The structure and morphology of the as-synthesized POP and respective Mn3O4@POP composite were examined by powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), TEM, XPS, FE-SEM, 13C CP MAS NMR, N2-adsorption desorption isotherms, FT-IR spectroscopy techniques. Mn loading in the Mn3O4@POP hybrid is 0.456 mmol g−1, as determined by ICP-MS analysis. C, H and N analysis data of the as-synthesized POP and Mn3O4@POP composite are provided in the Table S1, ESI.


image file: c6ra07200c-f1.tif
Fig. 1 (A) Synthesis of Mn3O4@POP hybrid material using hydrothermal technique. (B–E) TEM images of Mn3O4@POP hybrid material.

Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) images of Mn3O4@POP composites (Fig. 1B–E) at different magnifications show that small needle shape Mn3O4-NP are homogeneously dispersed throughout the surface of porous polymer with the needle size and width varying 30–250 nm and 7–12 nm, respectively (Fig. 1E). TEM images (Fig. 1B–D) demonstrated that Mn3O4 nanoneedles are tightly surrounded by porous organic polymer (the arrows mark the edges of Mn3O4 nanoneedle and POP) and a 3D flame like appearance possessing an interconnected three-dimensional porous network. In every TEM images the monodispersity of the Mn3O4 NPs can be well maintained. TEM images (Fig. 1B–E) exhibited hierarchical wrinkled nanostructure which can be assumed to the high temperature hydrothermal technique and strong interactions between the N-rich functional groups and the Mn3O4 nuclei. TEM images of as-synthesized porous polymer are provided in Fig. S1B, ESI. An inter-planar lattice spacing of 0.276 nm corresponding to the (103) crystalline plane of hausmannite Mn3O4 was observed from the high resolution TEM images (Fig. S2, ESI). Selected-area electron diffraction (SAED) pattern of the hybrid material also signifies (Fig. S3, ESI) crystalline feature of Mn3O4 needle in the Mn3O4@POP hybrid.27,28

Wide angle powder X-ray diffraction pattern (Fig. 2Aa) of as-synthesized POP material shows a single characteristic diffraction peak at 2θ = 20.1 which could be attributed to the amorphous framework structure. New crystalline reflection patterns are observed in the PXRD pattern of Mn3O4@POP hybrid (Fig. 2Ab) which could be assigned to the tetragonal Mn3O4 structure (hausmannite, I41/amd, a0 = b0 = 5.76 Å, and c0 = 9.47 Å; JCPDS card no. 24-0734).29 13C CP MAS NMR spectra (Fig. 2B) of the as-synthesized POP and Mn3O4@POP hybrid materials displayed three signals at chemical shift (δ) 112.0, 126.8 and 136.7 ppm attributable to the characteristic aromatic carbon atoms of organic skeleton unit (overlapping of C7–9 signals). In addition characteristic peak featured for triazine-C in the melamine unit appear at C1 (144.1 ppm). The strong signal at 39.8 ppm could be recognized for the aliphatic carbons (overlapping of C3–6) on the bridging units.30,31 The N2-adsorption desorption isotherms of the as-synthesized POP and Mn3O4@POP materials display a typical type-II isotherms a sharp nitrogen uptake in the high P/P0 pressure region corresponding to the existence of interparticle void space (Fig. 2C). The calculated BET surface areas of POP and Mn3O4@POP hybrid materials are found to be 620 m2 g−1 and 178 m2 g−1, respectively with the corresponding total pore volumes are 0.51 cm3 g−1 and 0.169 cm3 g−1, respectively. Pore size distributions of the respective materials obtained by employing NLDFT methods are provided in the Fig. S4 (ESI). A considerable decrease in surface area, pore volume and pore dimension for Mn3O4@POP hybrid compared with the as-synthesized material suggested occupation of Mn3O4-NP in the interior cavity of the nanoporous polymer.32 All the characteristic peaks at the region 1565 cm−1, 1332 cm−1 and 801 cm−1 signifying to the presence of distinctive triazine framework and 2923 cm−1 (CH2 stretching vibrations) similar to that of as-synthesized POP material are observed in the FT-IR spectrum of Mn3O4@POP hybrid (Fig. 2D). The presence of Mn3O4-NP tethered on porous organic polymer skeleton is clearly confirmed by the characteristic Mn–O stretching vibrations (625 and 517 cm−1).33 The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images (Fig. S5, ESI) of as-synthesized POP and Mn3O4@POP hybrid predict the flake like irregular blocks with rough surfaces composed of aggregated nanoparticles. Elemental mapping analyses with energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS) for Mn, N and O designate the successful incorporation of Mn3O4-NP with a homogeneous distribution (Fig. S6 and S7, ESI).


image file: c6ra07200c-f2.tif
Fig. 2 (A) Wide angle powder X-ray diffraction patterns, (B) 13C CP solid state MAS NMR spectra, (C) N2-adsorption–desorption isotherms and (D) FT-IR spectra of as-synthesized POP (a) and (b) Mn3O4@POP hybrid materials.

X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) survey scan of Mn3O4@POP hybrid signifies the presence of Mn, O, C and N elements (Fig. S8, ESI). In the Mn 2p XPS spectrum of Mn3O4@POP hybrid the binding energies of Mn 2p1/2 and Mn 2p3/2 appeared at 651.7 eV and 640.2 eV, respectively, with a splitting width of 11.5 eV demonstrating the presence of Mn3O4-NP (Fig. 3Ab). In the Mn 2p spectrum of bare Mn3O4-NP, a 2p3/2–2p1/2 doublet with the corresponding splitting width of 11.7 eV is observed (Fig. 3Aa) is in agreement with an earlier report on Mn3O4 by Raj et al.34 The negative shift in the XPS binding energy of Mn 2p region for Mn3O4@POP hybrid compared with the bare Mn3O4-NP can be attributed to the strong electronic interaction of nitrogen rich porous polymer skeleton with Mn center. XPS spectrum in the N 1s region with the binding energy at 397.9 eV of as-synthesized porous polymer can be recognized to the existence of single type pyridinic nitrogen structure (Fig. 3Ba). A positive shift in the binding energy to the higher binding energy (∼1.0 eV) in N 1s spectrum of Mn3O4@POP hybrid signifies strong coordination of Mn centers with the pyridinic N atoms of polymeric skeleton via electron donation thereby changing electron density over the N atoms making slightly positively charged (Fig. 3Bb).35 Manganese oxidation state was also confirmed by Mn 3s region XPS spectrum (Fig. 3C) with the binding energy splitting width 5.3 eV, in a good agreement with the previously reported XPS spectrum of Mn3O4. The major Raman bands at 317.6, 373.6 and 659.1 cm−1 in the Raman spectrum (Fig. 3D) can be assigned to the presence of Mn3O4-NP in the Mn3O4@POP hybrid material.36


image file: c6ra07200c-f3.tif
Fig. 3 (A) XPS spectra in Mn 2p region of bare Mn3O4-NP (a) and Mn3O4–POP (b); (B) XPS spectra in N 1s region of as-synthesized POP (a) and Mn3O4–POP (b); (C) XPS spectrum in Mn 3s region of Mn3O4–POP and (D) Raman spectrum of Mn3O4@POP hybrid material.

Catalytic performance of Mn3O4@POP hybrid material has been evaluated for oxidation of alcohols to develop a variety of carbonyl compounds using acetonitrile as solvent in presence of tert-butyl hydroperoxide considering 1-phenylethanol as model substrate at 80 °C. Detail catalytic procedure has been provided in the Experimental section (see ESI). Our newly designed nanocatalyst is very effective for oxidation of nonactivated alkanols to afford corresponding aldehydes and ketones with no observable over-oxidizing byproducts. Among the oxidising agents employed including TBHP, H2O2 and O2, tert-butyl hydroperoxide solution has been considered as the best oxidising agent in oxidation of 1-phenylethanol (Fig. S9, ESI). We have further optimized the mole ratio of TBHP and substrate for oxidation of 1-phenylethanol over Mn3O4@POP in acetonitrile solvent at 80 °C temperature. 99.2% conversion of 1-phenylethanol to acetophenone with 100% selectivity has been achieved when mole ratio of alcohol and TBHP is 1[thin space (1/6-em)]:[thin space (1/6-em)]2 (Fig. S10, ESI). Various solvents were screened for catalytic oxidation of 1-pehnylethanol (Table S2, ESI) over Mn3O4@POP, with observed high conversion (99.2%) and TOF 13.5 h−1 in acetonitrile at 80 °C. Subsequent investigation on the effect of reaction temperature (Table S3, ESI) indicates that 80 °C is the optimum reaction temperature to furnish 99.6% conversion of 1-phenylethanol with TOF 13.6 h−1. Experimental outcome of alcohol oxidation pointed to an optimized performance of Mn3O4@POP (20 mg), which provided an entire conversion with a TOF 13.5 h−1 (Table S4, ESI). Bare Mn3O4-NP underwent 47% conversion of 1-phenylethanol after 15 h with a TOF 5.1 h−1. To better clarify the role of support in this hybrid nanocatalyst for oxidation reaction we have successfully developed a series of Mn3O4-NP supported nanocatalysts following same catalyst synthesis procedure and checked the catalytic performance with these different solid supported catalysts. The powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) patterns (Fig. S11, ESI) and transmission electron microscopy images (Fig. S12–S15 ESI) of the Mn3O4@SiO2/TiO2/Al2O3/C materials confirmed the construction of Mn3O4-NP on the surface of solid support. The products were extracted with ethyl acetate from the reaction mixture after separation of solid catalyst and then isolated by preparative TLC method using n-hexane/ethyl acetate as an eluent. A detail investigation of 1-phenylethanol oxidation to acetophenone was followed by time-on-stream profiles for different Mn3O4-NP based catalysts under optimized reaction conditions (Fig. 4A) which demonstrated that alcohol oxidation progressively increased with time and all the catalysts showed different catalytic performance. All the catalysts showed initially ∼10% conversion with time but for Mn3O4@POP catalyst it was changed dramatically after 6 h. The high catalytic efficiency of Mn3O4@POP-hybrid material can be assigned to the unique well-defined three dimensional (3D) organic highly cross linked rigid porous framework with accessibility of the catalytically active sites thereby facilitating a “point-to-point” manner strong electrostatic and π–π interactions with easy diffusion of organic substrates.37


image file: c6ra07200c-f4.tif
Fig. 4 (A) Comparison study in catalytic performance in terms of 1-phenylethanol conversion as a function of time employing all Mn based nanocatalysts. (B) Time-on-stream profile for catalytic oxidation of cinnamyl alcohol with Mn3O4@POP catalyst. Reaction conditions: 1-phenylethanol (1.5 mmol, 180 mg), CH3CN (10 mL), TBHP (70 wt% in H2O, 3 mmol, 0.38 mL), 80 °C, catalyst (20 mg).

Cinnamaldehyde become the major product with 70% conversion of cinnamyl alcohol after 8 h reaction evaluation with Mn3O4@POP nanocatalyst (Fig. 4B). But with the further reaction progress a drop in cinnamaldehyde selectivity is observed with concomitant formation of epoxide minor product suppressing other competitive side reactions including C[double bond, length as m-dash]C hydrogenation, via surface hydrogen liberated during the initial alcohol activation step and decarbonylation of –CHO group which are likely to be observed for allylic alcohol oxidation with Pd-based catalysts.38,39 Inspired by these intriguing results, we have next examined substrate scopes for representative oxidation reaction with Mn3O4@POP nanocatalyst employing a variety of activated and nonactivated alkanols under optimized reaction conditions (Table 1). Cyclohexyl methyl alcohol was oxidised to the corresponding aldehyde (Table 1, entry 1) with 97.9% conversion exhibiting 13.4 h−1 TOF. Oxidation of benzyl alcohol proceeded (Table 1, entry 2) with high selectivity of benzaldehyde, although with somewhat moderate TOF value 4.6 h−1. 9-Fluorenemethanol (Table 1, entry 3) oxidation afforded 76.2% conversion, with remarkably high TOF value 13.9 h−1. Successive catalytic oxidations of chemically inert cyclic alkanols to the corresponding ketones were achieved (Table 1, entries 4–8) with notably high TOF values irrespective on the ring size. Cyclohexanol and 4-methylcyclohexanol also underwent oxidation reaction very smoothly to the corresponding desired ketones, furnishing TOF values 7.7 h−1 and 8.3 h−1, respectively (Table 1, entries 4 & 5). Cyclooctanol having a large ring size could be transformed into corresponding ketone with high selectivity providing 8.6 h−1 TOF (Table 1, entry 8). Our catalyst is also very effective for large scale oxidation reaction (Table 1, entry 9). The catalyst also worked well in the oxidation of some aliphatic alcohols (Table 1, entries 10 & 11). α,β-Unsaturated alcohols including 2-cyclohexen-1-ol and cinnamyl alcohol (Table 1, entries 12, 13) could be transformed into corresponding ketone and aldehyde with high selectivity. Several substituted benzyl alcohols afforded corresponding aldehydes (Table 1, entries 14 & 15) in excellent yields. The present catalytic system was also applicable to the oxidation of heterocyclic alcohol with desired product yield (Table 1, entry 16).

Table 1 Catalytic oxidation of different activated and nonactivated alkanols catalyzed by Mn3O4@POP nanocatalysta
Entry Substrate Product Con (%) TOF (h−1)
a Reaction conditions: alcohols (1.5 mmol), CH3CN (10 mL), TBHP (70 wt% in H2O, 3 mmol, 0.38 mL), time (12–15 h), Mn3O4@POP catalyst (20 mg), temperature 80 °C. TOF (turn over frequency) = moles of substrate converted per mole of active site per hour.
1 image file: c6ra07200c-u1.tif image file: c6ra07200c-u2.tif 97.9 13.4
2 image file: c6ra07200c-u3.tif image file: c6ra07200c-u4.tif 45.2 4.6
3 image file: c6ra07200c-u5.tif image file: c6ra07200c-u6.tif 76.2 13.9
4 image file: c6ra07200c-u7.tif image file: c6ra07200c-u8.tif 56.8 7.7
5 image file: c6ra07200c-u9.tif image file: c6ra07200c-u10.tif 61.2 8.3
6 image file: c6ra07200c-u11.tif image file: c6ra07200c-u12.tif 71.6 7.8
7 image file: c6ra07200c-u13.tif image file: c6ra07200c-u14.tif 67.9 7.4
8 image file: c6ra07200c-u15.tif image file: c6ra07200c-u16.tif 63.4 8.6
9 image file: c6ra07200c-u17.tif image file: c6ra07200c-u18.tif 98.6 13.6
10 image file: c6ra07200c-u19.tif image file: c6ra07200c-u20.tif 68.6 7.5
11 image file: c6ra07200c-u21.tif image file: c6ra07200c-u22.tif 59.2 6.9
12 image file: c6ra07200c-u23.tif image file: c6ra07200c-u24.tif 58.9 6.9
13 image file: c6ra07200c-u25.tif image file: c6ra07200c-u26.tif 70.3 9.6
14 image file: c6ra07200c-u27.tif image file: c6ra07200c-u28.tif 78.9 10.8
15 image file: c6ra07200c-u29.tif image file: c6ra07200c-u30.tif 72.5 6.6
16 image file: c6ra07200c-u31.tif image file: c6ra07200c-u32.tif 88.7 8.1
17 image file: c6ra07200c-u33.tif image file: c6ra07200c-u34.tif 46.3 3.8


Catalytic reaction with MOF based catalyst has been considered significantly poorer compared with our POP based catalyst (Table 1, entry 17). Our newly designed Mn3O4@POP nanocatalyst could be reused and recycled at least 15 times without any significant loss of catalytic activity (Fig. 5A) and the consistent turn over number (TOF) ∼ 13 h−1 in each catalytic run is observed (Fig. 5B) for 1-phenylethanol oxidation reaction. Hot-filtration test and leaching test were performed considering 1-phenylethanol oxidation to confirm that our nanocatalyst is indeed heterogeneous in nature (see ESI). Mn content in the reused catalyst after 15th catalytic run was found to be 0.448 mmol g−1 (still comparable with the fresh catalyst) which indicates strong entrapment of nanoparticles in interior porous cavity of the unique polymeric framework inhibits detectable leaching of metal during catalytic reaction. Furthermore, our Mn3O4@POP catalyst system exhibited considerable superior reusability (Fig. S16, ESI) than the corresponding conventional catalysts such as Mn3O4@C, Mn3O4@SiO2, Mn3O4Al2O3 and Mn3O4@TiO2. Reused catalyst characterization revealed the mechanical and chemical stability of the stability, evading the associated structural degradation of the catalyst (Fig. S17 and S18, ESI).40


image file: c6ra07200c-f5.tif
Fig. 5 (A) Recycle potential diagram of Mn3O4@POP catalyst for 1-phenylethanol oxidation, (B) continuous turn over frequency (TOF) as a function of time obtained during the oxidation of 1-phenylethanol in each catalytic cycle. Reaction conditions: 1-phenylethanol (1.5 mmol, 180 mg), CH3CN (10 mL), TBHP (70 wt% in H2O, 3 mmol, 0.38 mL), 80 °C, catalyst (20 mg). Inside TEM image of reused Mn3O4@POP catalyst after 16th catalytic run.

The impressive catalytic performance, high chemical stability, and favorable reusability with no sign of metal leaching during the heterogeneous catalysis providing shorter reaction time employing non-noble metal nanocatalyst compared with the previously reported catalysts can be attributed to the several unique characteristics including (1) well-defined three dimensional (3D) organic highly cross linked rigid porous framework for easy mass transfer/diffusion and (2) introduction of mix-valence manganese ions into interior cavity of porous matrix exposing more reactive active sites and synergic interaction between C–N and Mn to promote the activation of C–H, O–H and O–O bonds by interacting with alkanols/TBHP.41 A plausible reaction pathway involving free radical for alcohol oxidation is depicted in the Fig. S19, ESI. TBHP is cleaved into t-butoxide and hydroxyl radicals upon heating which abstracts the proton to generate carbon-centred radical on α-carbon followed by elimination of aldehyde is in good agreement with previous report by Yamamoto et al.42

In conclusion, we have successfully designed noble-metal-free Mn3O4@POP hybrid material by encapsulation of mixed valence Mn3O4-NP into the interior cavity of nitrogen rich triazine functionalized porous organic polymer. On the basis of the characterization of hybrid nanocatalyst, the catalytic property was explored for oxidation of a diverse range of activated and nonactivated alkanols to afford corresponding carbonyl compounds with high product selectivity, tremendous recyclability and mechanical stability. An enhancement in catalytic performance for our designed Mn3O4@POP nanocatalyst compared with the other conventional catalysts revealed potential employment of such three dimensional porous organic highly cross linked framework as a useful platform in heterogeneous catalysis. We strongly believe that our present study and investigation regarding the use of Mn3O4-nanocatalyst may open up new opportunities for development and progress of new noble-metal-free heterogeneous catalysts.

Acknowledgements

KD wishes to thankfully acknowledge Department of Science and Technology (DST), New Delhi for providing her DST-INSPIRE-JRF fellowship. AB wishes to thank DST, New Delhi for providing funding though DST-SERB and DST-UKIERI project research grants and DST Unit on Nanoscience for providing instrumental facilities at IACS. RS, BMR and JM thank to Department of Science and Technology, India for DST-INSPIRE Faculty Research project grant (GAP-0522) in CSIR-IICT, Hyderabad.

Notes and references

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Footnotes

Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c6ra07200c
These two authors have equally contributed in this work.

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