Cu(II) immobilized on guanidine functionalized Fe3O4 magnetic substrate as a heterogeneous catalyst for selective reduction of nitroarenes

In the present work, copper (II) immobilized on guanidine functionalized Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles (Fe 3 O 4 @Guanidine–Cu II ) are developed as a heterogeneous catalyst. Fe 3 O 4 @Guanidine–Cu II is well-characterized by adopting FT-IR, XRD, SEM, TEM, EDX, SEM-elemental mapping, TG–DTA, XPS, ICP-OES, and VSM analysis. Fe 3 O 4 @Guanidine–Cu II is employed for the selective reduction of nitro group on electronically diversified nitroarenes involving NaBH 4 to serve as a hydrogen source in ethanol medium. Anilines resulted from the reduction of nitroarenes are of excellent yields with high TON and TOF numbers, indicating the efficiency of the prepared catalyst. Also, the catalyst has been recovered with effective yield over the time of the reaction, and the recovered catalyst was used up to eight cycles for the reaction without any significant change in the catalytic activity. This notable feature of the prepared catalytic system makes it highly promising, not only for an industrial but also from an environmental point of view.