Sustainable iron catalyst for clean hydrogenations
New research reports a clean, sustainable method for performing hydrogenation reactions in water using polymer-supported iron nanoparticles.
Hydrogenation reactions have numerous industrial applications, including in the petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries, but they usually rely heavily on expensive and rare precious-metal catalysts, which are also toxic. Iron is an abundant and less toxic alternative for catalysing hydrogenations, but its use in industry is limited by rusting in the presence of oxygen and water.
In a joint project, scientists in Canada and Japan have developed amphiphilic polymers that protect iron nanoparticles from being deactivated by water, whilst still allowing the reactants to reach the catalyst active sites. Using this clean, green catalyst, they were able to perform hydrogenations of alkenes, alkynes, aromatic imines and aldehydes that were almost quantitative in most cases.
The researchers also showed that the catalyst can be used in a flow system with little leaching, allowing for continuous hydrogenation at a multi-gram scale and demonstrating its potential application in industrial-scale reactions.
Original publication
R Hudson et al, Green Chem., 2013
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