Controlled Synthesis of Palladium Nanocubes as an Efficient Nanocatalyst for Suzuki–Miyaura Cross-Coupling and Reduction of <i>p</i>-Nitrophenol
Swarnalata Swain, M. B. Bhavya, Vishal Kandathil, Prangya Bhol, Akshaya K. Samal, Siddappa A. Patil
Abstract
Anisotropic nanocatalysts have attracted considerable attention in comparison to bulk/nanocatalysts for their enhanced activity and reactivity. The demand toward anisotropic palladium (Pd) nanostructures has increased rapidly in the field of catalysis. Pd is a well-known active catalyst for several carbon–carbon (C–C) cross-coupling reactions; among them, the Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling reaction is one of the most versatile and dominant methods for constructing the extraordinarily useful unsymmetrical biaryls and also for hydrogenation of organic contaminants like p-nitrophenol (p-NP). This paper provides a brief explanation about the controlled synthesis, characterization, and catalytic activity of well-defined palladium nanocubes (Pd NCs) prepared by a seed-mediated method. The synthesized monodispersed Pd NCs were characterized by spectroscopic and microscopic tools such as UV–visible, XRD, FESEM, HRTEM, and EDS analyses. Pd NCs proved as an efficient catalyst for Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling reactions and p-NP reduction. The catalyst shows enhanced activity, greater stability, and higher selectivity with remarkable recyclability up to 92% for five consecutive cycles. The catalytic performance of the synthesized Pd NCs was also studied in the reduction of the organic contaminant p-NP, which showed an excellent performance screening of 99% conversion in 6 min.