Magnetically retrievable ferrite nanoparticles in the catalysis application.

In the present review, we summarized the applications of magnetic spinel ferrite nanoparticles as catalysts in organic reactions and transformations. Catalytic applications are comprised of using mostly cobalt, nickel, copper, and zinc ferrites, along with their mixed-metal combinations based on nano ferrites. The spinel ferrites (SFs) are gained principally by wet-chemical, sol-gel or co-precipitation methods, more infrequently by the mechanical high-energy ball milling, spark plasma sintering, sonochemical technique, microwave heating or hydrothermal route. Catalytic processes with the application of ferrite nanoparticles are included decomposition (in particular photocatalytic), reactions of dehydrogenation, oxidation, alkylation, CC coupling, removing organic/inorganic contaminants from aqueous solutions. As significant and remarkable advantages, ferrite nanocatalysts not only are environmentally benign and compatible with green chemistry aspects but also can be simply recovered from reaction systems and recycled up to several times almost without significant loss of their catalytic activity.