Synthesis of magnetic chitosan supported metformin-Cu(II) complex as a recyclable catalyst for N-arylation of primary sulfonamides

Abstract

The application of chitosan, which has received much attention as a natural polymer and effective support, has many advantages such as biodegradability and biocompatibility. In this study, the immobilization of a copper complex on the magnetic chitosan bearing metformin ligand has been developed through immobilizing structurally defined metformin with long tail of (3-chloropropyl)trimethoxysilane (TMOS). The synthesized Fe3O4-chitosan@metformin-Cu(II) complex (Fe3O4-CS@Met-Cu(II)) was used as an effective, reusable and magnetic catalyst in the N-arylation of different derivatives of primary sulfonamides with arylboronic acids in ethanol. The primary sulfonamides were prepared from the reaction of sulfonyl chlorides with sodium cyanate in water under ultrasonic irradiation. Utilizing a wide variety of substrates in EtOH as a green solvent, high yields of the primary and secondary sulfonamides, easy work-up along with the excellent recovery and reusability of the catalyst, make this process a simple, economic and environmentally benign method. The synthesized Fe3O4-CS@Met-Cu(II) was characterized using various techniques such as XRD (X-ray diffraction), EDS (energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy), elemental mapping, TEM (transmission electron microscopy), FESEM (field emission scanning electron microscopy), VSM (vibrating sample magnetometer), ICP-MS (inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy), TGA (thermogravimetric analysis) and FT-IR (Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy) analyses. The catalyst can be recycled and reused 5 times with no considerable loss of catalytic activity.