Ru (III) Schiff base Complex Anchored onto Rice Husk Derived Nanosilica Support: An Efficient Heterogeneous Catalyst for Oxidation of Alcohols

A Rice Husk based nanosilica anchored Ru(III) Schiff-base complex was found to be a very efficient and reusable heterogeneous catalyst for organic transformation of alcohol to carbonyl compounds. The catalyst was obtained by simple Schiff-base condensation between 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) functionalized nanosilica and acetamide. The characterization of the catalyst was carried out by various techniques such as FT-IR, XRD, ESR, BET surface area measurements, SEM-EDX mapping and ICP-AES. The alcohol oxidation reactions were performed at 50C using acetonitrile and TBHP as solvent and oxidant, respectively. The catalyst was found to be very effective towards alcohol oxidation with excellent product yield and reusable upto minimum 5th reaction cycle.