Catalytic Activity of Functionalized Spinels

The development of spinels as catalysts for various organic transformations has gained a considerable importance over the last decade. In this article, an overview is given about the use of spinels and functionalized spinels in heterogeneous catalysis. In particular, these can be either normal or inverse spinels and they can trigger catalytic reactions without modification, with modification, as core material and also decorated on carbon materials. Catalytic application of these ferrite spinels in the nano size range including diamagnetic, paramagnetic, ferromagnetic magnetic materials is used in C-C coupling, dehydration reactions, oxidations, reductions, reforming reactions. These nano spinels can be easily recovered and recycled with a help of external magnet after the reactions. In most of the cases, all these spinels are characterized with the help of X-ray Powder Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES) and X-ray Photo electron Spectroscopy (XPS).