ISSN print edition: 0366-6352 ISSN electronic edition: 1336-9075 Registr. No.: MK SR 9/7 Published monthly

A photocatalytic green system for chemoselective reduction of nitroarenes

Moosa Ramdar, Foad Kazemi, and Babak Kaboudin

Department of Chemistry, Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences (IASBS), Zanjan, Iran

E-mail: kazemi_f@iasbs.ac.ir

Abstract: A highly efficient photocatalytic reduction of nitroarenes using TiO₂/polyethylene glycol 400-water (TiO₂/PEG–H₂O) is reported. This system at deoxygenated and illuminated (sunlight or violet LED) conditions efficiently reduced nitroarenes using oxalic acid or ammonium formate as a sacrificial electron donor. Reducible functional groups such as chloro, hydroxy, flouro, bromo and carbonyl were intact under the optimized reaction conditions. The 0.1 and 0.5–1 mmol amount of nitroarenes was used under sunlight and violet LED (400 nm) irradiation, respectively. Reusability of the nanotitania was successfully carried out four times. The analyses of the recovered catalyst after five runs including TEM, XRD, TGA and CHN were done and results showed that PEG is located on TiO₂; no change in morphology, crystallinity and particle sizes was observed.

Keywords: Violet LED; Sunlight; PEG-TiO₂; Photocatalytic; Chemoselective; Green synthesis

Full paper is available at www.springerlink.com.

DOI: 10.1007/s11696-016-0106-3

Chemical Papers 71 (6) 1155–1163 (2017)