One-pot green catalytic synthesis of primary amides in aqueous medium by CuII-immobilized silica-based magnetic retrievable nanocatalyst

In order to develop a new nanocatalyst, a copper-birhodanine derivative complex crafted onto Fe3O4@SiO2 nanoparticle [abbreviated as Fe3O4@SiO2-Ligand-Cu(II)] was synthesized and their structure characterized by different physicochemical techniques such as FT-IR, FE-SEM, XRD, EDX, TGA, AGFM, and ICP. This new magnetic nanoparticle revealed high catalytic performance for one-pot green synthesis of primary amides from aldehydes and NH2OH·HCl in water as a green solvent. The effects of catalyst amounts, reaction temperature, various bases and type of solvent on catalytic activity were also investigated. The catalyst was retrieved eight times without significant loss of its catalytic activity.