Promotional effect of palladium in Co-SiO2 core@shell nanocatalysts for selective liquid phase hydrogenation of chloronitroarenes

This study describes the synthesis of palladium-promoted [email protected]2 catalyst developed by electrostatic immobilization of Pd ionic precursor onto Co3O4 nanoparticles core, coated with a mesoporous SiO2 shell. The oxidized Pd-Co3O4@SiO2 (xPdCo-ox) and partially reduced [email protected]2 (xPdCo-red) nanocatalysts were used in the direct synthesis of chloro-arylamines from chloronitroarenes employing heterogeneous hydrogenation process. The effect of palladium content (xPdCo; x = 0.0, 0.5, 1.0 and 3.0 Pd wt%) in the Co3O4 core of the structures on catalytic performance for the hydrogenation of 4-chloronitrobenzene (CNB) to 4-chloroaniline (CAN) was systematically studied. It was found that the incorporation of palladium ionic precursor promotes both Co3O4 core nanoparticles flocculation and an increase in the mesoporous shell thickness in the Pd-promoted catalysts compared to the pristine Co-SiO2 core-shell structure. The TPR, XRD, XPS and magnetic measurements results indicated that the palladium addition promoted the reduction of Co3O4 core during the isothermal H2 treatment at 873 K rendering metallic Pd° and Co° species. The catalytic CNB hydrogenation experiments showed that the 0.5PdCo-red catalyst inhibited both the hydrodechlorination and intermediates accumulation reaching 99% yield in CAN compared to 1.0PdCo-red and 3.0PdCo-red catalysts which provided aniline as undesired product. Additionally, the 0.5PdCo-red catalyst was easily recycled with a moderate catalytic activity after five consecutive reaction cycles. Finally, the catalytic hydrogenation performance of the 0.5PdCo-red catalyst for different pharmaceutical substituted chloro-nitroarenes such as 1-(4-chlorophenoxy)-2-nitrobenzene, 2-chloro-1-((3-fluorobenzyl)oxy)-4-nitrobenzene and 2-chloro-5nitrobenzotrifluoride was also evaluated and revealed high activity (>99% at 3 h of reaction) and selectivity towards the desired chloro-arylmines production, highlighting the potential of this catalyst in these processes.