Hydrogenation of Epoxides to Anti-Markovnikov Alcohols over a Nickel Heterogenous Catalyst Prepared from Biomass (Rice) Waste

The synthesis of primary alcohols (from olefins) is an important and challenging transformation, as most of the current methods suffer from regioselectivity issues. This work describes the utilization of rice husk (RH) from agricultural waste as support for the preparation of a catalyst for the conversion of olefin oxides to primary alcohols. The catalyst was synthesized by pyrolysis of RH impregnated with nickel, and characterized by IR, AAS, XRD, BET, XPS, TEM, and TPD technics. The catalyst shows excellent activity and selectivity towards anti-Markovnikov alcohols, acting simultaneously as Bronsted acid, solid Lewis acid, and as hydrogenation catalyst. A substrate screening was done, the catalyst's recycling stability was assessed, and a plausibly reaction mechanism was proposed.

Automated summary

This study utilized rice husk as a support and synthesized a catalyst by impregnating nickel onto the rice husk, which showed excellent activity and selectivity towards anti-Markovnikov alcohols. The catalyst acted as both Bronsted acid and solid Lewis acid, as well as a hydrogenation catalyst.