Silica-decorated magnetic nanocomposites for catalytic applications

Stringent demands from society to address environmental issues and achieve an economically sustainable environment have placed tremendous pressure on industries to replace homogeneous catalyst with recoverable heterogeneous alternatives. Owing to recent advances in science and catalysis technology, these transformations have been revisited for the purpose of developing new nanocatalysts. In this review, we first discuss the background behind the huge interest in the important class of silica-coated magnetic nanoparticles (SMNPs) as nanocatalysts. Next, we discuss the importance of the unique arrangement of silica over magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs). Particular attention is given to recent developments and advances in spatial organization, functionalization and protection of these silica supported nanocatalysts. Synthetic protocols and applications of these nanomaterials for different organic transformations, such as carbon-carbon coupling reactions, acetylation, oxidation, hydrogenation, olefin-metathesis, asymmetric synthesis, photo-catalytic and other green reactions, are briefly discussed, providing a basic outline of the work performed to date. Exploration of the potential contribution of these nanoparticles (NPs) as recoverable, efficient and selective catalysts in various industrially significant organic transformations is the primary objective of these methodologies. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.