Tailoring chemoselectivity of Fe/Ni catalyst for hydrogenation of carbonyl compound

Selective hydrogenation of carbonyl moiety in the presence of olefinic group and other reducible functionality is an industrially important transformation. However, the protocol of green chemistry cannot be sacrificed for its formidable challenging transformation. Therefore, iron nickel bimetallic recyclable catalyst (Fe/Ni) was used for base free hydrogenation of carbonyl compound with high activity and chemoselectivity in microwave environment. The microwave irradiation and pre-treatment of bimetallic catalyst (Fe/Ni) divert conversion/selectivity towards CO group as compared to CC or another reducible moiety. This is further confirmed by DFT calculations which shows that the CO site is strongly interacted with the surface compared to the CC site. The pyridine adsorption studies revealed that pre-treated (Fe/Ni) possess more acidic sites as compared to untreated catalyst. Furthermore, the selectivity of bimetallic catalysts towards hydrogenation of carbonyl function group was correlated with Fe content present in the matrix of catalyst.