Zwitterionic Surfactant Stabilized Palladium Nanoparticles as Catalysts in Aromatic Nitro Compound Reductions

Palladium nanoparticles (NPs) stabilized by ImS3-14, a zwitterionic surfactant structurally related to ionic liquids, are revealed here to be good catalysts for the reduction of a large number of substituted aromatic nitro compounds. Our mass spectrometry results are consistent with the formation of amino products in a direct route, where the aromatic nitro compounds are initially reduced to nitroso compounds, which are then reduced to the hydroxylamine derivatives and finally to the anilines. Activation parameters showed that for most Pd catalysts reported in the literature, the mechanism see...