Palladium supported on hollow magnetic mesoporous spheres as recoverable catalyst for one-pot reductive amination of aldehydes with nitroarenes under mild conditions

•The synthesized HMMS-NH2-Pd shows excellent catalytic activity in amination reaction with over 97% yield in 6 h.•The catalyst can be recycled 6 times without loss activity.•The catalysts can be easily recovered by using an external magnet.

We described here a method to stabilize Pd(0) on the surface of hollow magnetic mesoporous spheres (HMMS), with Fe3O4 nanoparticles embedded in the mesoporous shell. The catalyst was characterized by TEM, XRD and VSM. It was found that the catalyst showed a high activity for the one-pot direct reductive amination of aldehydes with nitroarenes in the presence of molecular hydrogen in ethanol, even at room temperature. Besides, the catalyst could be recovered in a facile manner from the reaction mixture and recycled six times without loss in activity.

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