Polymer-Supported Raney Nickel Catalysts for Sustainable Reduction Reactions

• Main Authors: Haibin Jiang, Shuliang Lu, Xiaohong Zhang, Wei Dai, Jinliang Qiao
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2016-06-01
• Series: Molecules
• Subjects: polymer-supported; Raney catalysts; green chemistry
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/21/7/833

Green is the future of chemistry. Catalysts with high selectivity are the key to green chemistry. Polymer-supported Raney catalysts have been found to have outstanding performance in the clean preparation of some chemicals. For example, a polyamide 6-supported Raney nickel catalyst provided a 100.0% conversion of n-butyraldehyde without producing any detectable n-butyl ether, the main byproduct in industry, and eliminated the two main byproducts (isopropyl ether and methyl-iso-butylcarbinol) in the hydrogenation of acetone to isopropanol. Meanwhile, a model for how the polymer support brought about the elimination of byproducts is proposed and confirmed. In this account the preparation and applications of polymer-supported Raney catalysts along with the corresponding models will be reviewed.