Fe3O4@Zein nanocomposites decorated with copper(II) as an efficient, durable, and biocompatible reusable catalyst for click synthesis of novel fluorescent 1,4-disubstituted-1,2,3-triazoles in water

Abstract

In this paper, we have constructed Fe3O4@Zein-Cu(II) NPs as a novel reusable heterogeneous and superparamagnetic catalyst in Cu-catalysed azide-alkyne cycloaddition reactions (CuAAC). This magnetic Cu(II) nanocomposites were characterized by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), vibration sample magnetometer (VSM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). This biocompatible and inexpensive magnetic nanocomposite catalyses smoothly the regioselective click preparation of new fluorescent 1,4-disubstituted-1,2,3-triazoles of 1,8-naphthilimide and 3-nitrophthalimide with quantum yields 0.153 to 0.371 in good to excellent yields under mild conditions in H2O without using any ligands and reducing agents. The catalyst could be easily recovered with the aid of an external magnet and reused up to seven consecutive runs without significant reduction in its activity.