Selective and efficient hydrogenation of halonitrobenzene catalyzed by clay supported Nio-nanoparticles

• Montmorillonite clay is activated with mineral acid to generate nanopores of desired dimension.
• Nio-nanoparticles are generated into the modified montmorillonite by simple technique.
• The supported Nio-nanoparticles are found excellent catalyst in hydrogenation of halonitrobenzene to haloaniline.
• The used catalysts are recyclable for several catalytic run without significant lost in activity.

Nio-nanoparticles of approximately 5 nm were generated by incipient wetness impregnation of NiCl2·6H2O into the nanopores of the acid activated montmorillonite (AT-Mont) followed by reduction with hydrazine hydrate. The modification of montmorillonite was carried out by activating with H2SO4 under controlled conditions for generating nanopores up to about 10 nm size on the surface, which act as a “Host” for Nio-nanoparticles. Powder-XRD, SEM-EDX, HR-TEM, N2 adsorption, XPS, etc. analyses were carried out to characterize the stabilized nanoparticles as well as the supports. TEM study reveals that Nio-nanoparticles of size below 5 nm were evenly distributed over the support and exhibit face centred cubic (fcc) lattice. The supported Nio-nanoparticles serve as efficient and selective heterogeneous catalyst for hydrogenation of halonitrobenzene (HNB) to corresponding haloaniline (HAN) with conversion 78–100% and selectivity 96–99.4%. The metal nanocatalysts could be recycled and reused several times without significant loss of their catalytic activities.

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