ZnFe2O4@l-Arginine-Ni: A novel, green, recyclable, and highly versatile catalyst for the synthesis of 1H-tetrazoles and oxidation of sulfides to the sulfoxides

Abstract

In this work, we report the synthesis of ZnFe2O4@l-Arginine-Ni as a novel and green nanomagnetic catalyst, which is containing the l-Arginine-Ni catalytic sites on the surface of ZnFe2O4 as the catalytic support. The as-synthesized ZnFe2O4@l-Arginine-Ni MNPs were characterized with accuracy by different physicochemical methods; including, Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray elemental mapping, Thermogravimetric (TGA), and Vibrating Sample Magnetometry (VSM) analyses. The prepared magnetic nanoparticles exhibit excellent catalytic activity in synthesizing 1H-tetrazole derivatives and oxidation of sulfides to the sulfoxide under green conditions. The heterogeneous nature of the catalyst was confirmed via the hot filtration experiment. Furthermore, the activity of the recycled nanocatalyst was examined for at least five cycles with a negligible loss of its activity.