Effect of polyamide on selectivity of its supported Raney Ni catalyst

A protocol for hydrogenation of aldehydes and ketones to alcohols in aqueous media at room temperature in high yields and purity

In this paper, the hydrogenation of aldehydes and ketones using the RANEY® nickel catalyst was successfully applied for the synthesis of alcohol compounds without additional column chromatographic purification. This synthetic strategy features a wide range of substrates, excellent atom economy, high chemical discrimination and the use of a ligand-free catalytic system. Reactions were performed at room temperature in water providing alcohols in high yields and purity.

Polymer-Supported Raney Nickel Catalysts for Sustainable Reduction Reactions

Green is the future of chemistry. Catalysts with high selectivity are the key to green chemistry. Polymer-supported Raney catalysts have been found to have outstanding performance in the clean preparation of some chemicals. For example, a polyamide 6-supported Raney nickel catalyst provided a 100.0% conversion of n-butyraldehyde without producing any detectable n-butyl ether, the main byproduct in industry, and eliminated the two main byproducts (isopropyl ether and methyl-iso-butylcarbinol) in the hydrogenation of acetone to isopropanol. Meanwhile, a model for how the polymer support brought about the elimination of byproducts is proposed and confirmed. In this account the preparation and applications of polymer-supported Raney catalysts along with the corresponding models will be reviewed.