Palladium nanoparticles immobilized on an amine-functionalized MIL-101(Cr) as a highly active catalyst for oxidative amination of aldehydes

Abstract

The present work reports the synthesis of well dispersed palladium nanoparticles immobilized on an amino functionalized nanoscale metal–organic framework MIL-101(Cr), by using a facile polyol method. The resulting Pd/NH₂-MIL-101(Cr) nanocomposite is established to be an active heterogeneous catalyst for oxidative amination of aldehydes under solvent free conditions using hydrogen peroxide as an oxidant. The synthesized Pd/NH₂-MIL-101(Cr) is characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS). The catalyst could easily be recovered and recycled without any significant loss of its catalytic activity.