Synthesis and characterization of Cu(Ⅱ) Schiff base complex immobilized on magnetic graphene oxide sheets as heterogeneous catalyst

From the view of green chemistry, the design of new and efficient reaction protocols using supported nanocatalysis to synthesize fine chemical and pharmaceutical products has recently gained interest scientists. Carbon materials such as carbon nanofibers, carbon nanotubes and graphene oxide (GO) [1] as promising supports have attracted significant attention as they are inexpensive and readily obtained. Due to the particular properties of GO such as large surface area, high mechanical strength, unique layered structure, excellent physicochemical stability, and high flexibility, they can be applied as support for homogeneous catalysts. Metal transition complexes of Schiff base have been studied extensively due to their potential application in catalytic systems. The Schiff base complexes of transition metals which have been known as homogeneous catalysts can be immobilized on graphene oxide nanosheets performs as efficient catalysts .The incorporation of magnetic components into GO is most favored and will provide high catalytic activity and improve isolation capability [2]. In this work, a Cu(Ⅱ) Schiff base complex supported on magnetic GO and used as efficient nanocatalyst for some of organic reaction. The synthesized nanocatalyst was characterized by various techniques including XRD, FT-IR, TGA, SEM, and ICP-AES analyses. Also, the synthesized nanocatalyst could be separated easily from the reaction mixture using an external magnet and reused for several consecutive times with only minor degradation of its catalytic performance.

Keywords:

graphene oxide , Schiff base complex , nanocatalysis