Carbon nitride supported palladium nanoparticles: An active system for the reduction of aromatic nitro-compounds

•Synthesis of the Pd-nanoparticles using sodium borohydride on graphitic carbon nitride (g-CN) support.•Graphitic carbon nitride supported palladium nanoparticles (Pd-g-CN) has been used as an efficient catalyst for the chemo-selective reduction of aromatic nitro-compounds in presence of a mild reducing agent.•The catalyst showed high recyclability and can also be stored for a long time at ambient condition maintaining the high catalytic efficiency.•The optimized reaction condition is useful to prepare two new compounds, such as, 2, 6-diaminophenol and 4-(1H-indole-1-yl) aniline, not previously reported in the literature.

Synthesis of carbon nitride supported highly dispersed ultrafine palladium nanoparticles has been reported for the reduction of aromatic nitro-compounds using hydrazine hydrate as a reducing agent. As a demonstration, the as-synthesized carbon nitride-palladium composite was shown to be a highly active and chemo-selective for the title reaction. Utilizing the optimized reaction conditions a set of aromatic nitro compounds have been converted to their corresponding amine derivatives with good to excellent yield ranging from 80% to 99%. The catalyst can be used for multiple times without affecting the catalytic performance and can also be stored for a long time at ambient condition maintaining the high catalytic efficiency.

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