Nickel Nanoparticles Immobilized on a Porous Triazine-Thiourea-Sulfonamide as an Efficient Heterogeneous Catalyst for Reduction of Carbonyl Compounds

In order to investigate the role of silica template, polymers and nickel nanoparticles on the reduction of aldehydes/ketones, a novel porous triazine-thiourea-sulfonamide polymeric organic support (TTSA) was prepared via in-situ polymerization of melamine (1,3,5-triazine-2,4,6-triamine), thiourea and benzene-1,3-disulfonyl chloride in the presence of silica nanoparticles as a template led to the synthesize silica TTSA nanocomposite. Next, after removal of the template, the nanocomposite was transformed into mesoporous poly triazine-thiourea-sulfonamide. Ni nanoparticles (Ni NPs) were then decorated on the designed mesoporous polymer support and the resulting TTSA@Ni NPs nanospheres were employed as heterogeneous catalyst in the construction of alchohols from reduction of aldehydes/ketones using formic acid/triethyl amine as a reducing agent in water as solvent. The catalyst is low-cost, non-toxic, and can be reused for several catalytic cycles without decreasing the activity.