FeO@WO-E-SMTU-Ni: as an environmentally-friendly, recoverable, durable and noble-free nanostructured catalyst for C-C bond formation reaction in green media.

In the present study, Ni immobilized on FeO@WO functionalized by aminated epichlorohydrin using -methylisothiourea (FeO@WO-E-SMTU-Ni) as a novel magnetically separable nanostructured catalyst was successfully synthesized and characterized using FT-IR, XRD, TEM, FE-SEM, EDX, EDX mapping, VSM, TGA, H-TPR, ICP-OES and CHNS techniques. Characterization results revealed the spherical morphology and superparamagnetic behaviour of the as-synthesized catalyst with mean diameters of 19-31 nm as well as uniform distributions of the desired elements (Fe, O, W, C, N, S and Ni). The antibacterial activity of FeO@WO-E-SMTU-Ni was evaluated against a set of Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria, and the catalyst showed considerable activity against the strain. The aforementioned nanostructured catalyst exhibited perfect catalytic efficiency in the Heck-Mizoroki and Suzuki-Miyaura reactions under mild conditions without using toxic solvents (EtOH as a green solvent and WEB as a benign base). Desired coupled products were obtained from the reaction of different Ar-X (X = I, Br, Cl) with alkyl acrylates and arylboronic acids. A high nickel content with negligible metal leaching during the course of reactions led to the high catalytic performance and stability of FeO@WO-E-SMTU-Ni under optimized reaction conditions. The magnetically separation and ease of recovery and reusability of up to six cycles without a discernible decrease in catalytic activity or metal leaching are the most important features of the catalytic system from both industrial and environmental viewpoints.