Mesoporous SBA-15 supported silver nanoparticles as environmentally friendly catalysts for three-component reaction of aldehydes, alkynes and amines with glycol as a green solvent

The mesoporous SBA-15 supported silver nanoparticles catalyst system with a highly ordered hexagonal mesostructure was prepared by an in situ reduction method using hexamethylenetetramine as mild and efficient reducing agent. These AgSBA-15 materials act as environmentally friendly catalysts in A(3)-coupling reactions of aldehydes, amines, and terminal alkynes with glycol as a green solvent. It is also found that the maximum reaction yield has been obtained for an average Ag-nanoparticle size of about 8 nm. The catalyst could also be recovered easily and used repetitively four times without significantly affecting the catalytic activity. The heterogeneous catalysts were fully characterized by N-2 adsorption and desorption, XRD, TEM, ICP and XPS. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.