Visible light responsive Gd, N co-doped mesoporous titania in the photo-oxidation of some novel 9-(N,N-Dimethylaminomethyl)anthracene systems

Oxidative semiconductor catalysis by light can be considered as an easy method for the conversion of harmful aromatics to less harmful products and at the same time move towards a “sustainable chemistry”. The present work reports the preparation of Gd, N co-doped TiO 2 system by hydrothermal technique followed by calcination at 500 °C and checks its activity in photo-oxidation reactions. The prepared system was characterized by various physico-chemical techniques such as X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, IR spectroscopy, TG–DTG, UV-DRS, SEM, TEM and XPS. Structural identity and mesoporous nature were identified from XRD and BET measurements respectively. On reaction, Tertiary amine appended anthracene and its phenyl substituted derivative in CH 3 CN yielded Anthraquinone as the major product. Substituted Anthracenemethanamine reacted slowly and a relatively stable intermediate could be isolated at shorter periods of time. The products were separated and purified by column chromatography and the resultant products were characterized thoroughly by 1 H NMR, IR spectroscopy and GCMS analysis.