Carbon-Encapsulated Iron Nanoparticles with deposited Pd: A High-Performance Catalyst for Hydrogenation of Nitro Compounds

A novel easy-to-prepare magnetic catalyst, composed of palladium nanoparticles supported on surface-oxidized carbon-encapsulated iron nanoparticles, has been synthesized. The synthesis involved the reduction of palladium precursor in the presence of magnetic core-shell nanomaterial. The size of the palladium nanoparticles distributed over the support does not exceed 15 nm. The catalytic performance of this composite material was tested in hydrogenation of seven various nitro compounds to the respective amino derivatives. The composite exhibits excellent catalytic activity and can be easily separated from the reaction mixture after the reaction. The determined reaction yields were above 90 % and this value was not worsened even after ten cycles, for the case of hydrogenation of nitrobenzene. Importantly, the method is chromatography-free and employs the ammonium formate as a hydrogen source, which makes the herein presented protocol safer in comparison with the previously reported reductions in which highly dangerous gaseous hydrogen was used.