Design, fabrication and characterization of mesoporous yolk–shell nanocomposites as a sustainable heterogeneous nanocatalyst for synthesis of ortho-aminocarbonitrile tetrahydronaphthalenes

Abstract

A new structure of mesoporous spherical nanocomposites was designed and easily prepared from the reaction between NiCuFe2O4 nanoparticles and mesoporous silica in three steps. The prepared multi-yolk@shell NiCuFe2O4@mSiO2 mesoporous sphere was characterized by using FT-IR, XRD, VSM, EDX, BET, FE-SEM and HR-TEM techniques. This unique mesoporous nanocomposite sphere as a heterogeneous nanocatalyst has demonstrated highly catalytic activity for the green synthesis of tetrahydronaphthalene derivatives in 92–98% yields at reaction times of 60–75 min. This process was carried out through multi-component reaction of the cyclic ketone, malononitrile and aromatic aldehyde under solvent-free conditions. Furthermore, the procedure was optimized on the basis of catalyst loading amounts, various solvents and temperature conditions. This novel methodology exposes obvious benefits such as; catalyst reusability, easy reaction procedure, simplicity of work-up, excellent product yields and short reaction times.