Metal Nanoparticles: A New Generation Catalyst for Organic Synthesis
Mazaahir Kidwai
Green Chemistry Research Laboratory,
Department of Chemistry, University of Delhi, Delhi, India 110007.
Kidwai_chemistry@yahoo.co.in;Kidwai.chemistry@gmail.com
Abstract
Nanoscience is a combination of “nano”, from the Greek “nano” or Latin “nanus”
meaning dwarf and the word “science”. The word nano means 10-9, so nanometer is one
billionth of a meter. Nanoparticles are core base materials for implementing nanotechnology
and have attracted researchers not only in field of chemistry but also in other fields such as
physics, medicine, biology and material science, due to their current and promosing
applications in organic synthesis, magnetic storage media, cell and DNA separation, drug
delivery. In the growing field of metal nanoparticles they can also be used for the preparation
of porous metallic ensembles and as filters for polymers.
Metal nanoparticles provide an immense potential in organic synthesis and various
organic transformations due to their characteristic, high surface to volume ratio and a higher
concentration of partially co-coordinated surface sites than the corresponding bulk materials.
The metal nanoparticles are supposed to environmentally benign as they can be readily
recovered and reused, and thus economically acceptable.
Our research group has carried out several organic transformations [1] and synthesis of
biological active moieties using various metal nanoparticles [2]. One of the recent work
include A3 coupling of aldehyde, amines and alkynes using Au(0) of 10-15 nm. nanoparticles
to give propargylamines [3]. We had also carried out Ulmann coupling [4] to form diaryl
ether from phenol and aryl halide using Cu(0) metal nanoparticles. Ni- metal Nanoparticle has
immense potential for reduction and can perform reduction chemoselectively.
References
[1] M. Kidwai, V. Bansal, N. K. Mishra, A. Kumar, and S. Mozumdar, Synlett, 2007,
1581–1584., (b) M. Kidwai, V. Bansal, A. Saxena, S. Aerry and S. Mozumdar,
Tetrahedron Lett., 2006, 47, 8049–8053.
[2] M. Kidwai, V. Bansal, A. Kumar, and S. Mozumdar, Green Chem., 2007, 9, 742–745.
[3] M. Kidwai, N. K. Mishra, V. Bansal, A. Kumar and S. Mozumdar, Tetrahedron Lett.,
2007, 48, 8883-8887
[4] M. Kidwai, V. Bansal, A. Saxena, R. Shankar and S. Mozumdar, Tetrahedron Lett.,
2006, 47, 4161–4165.