Pavuluri Srinivasu

Chemoselective hydrogenation of biomass derived cinnamaldehyde (CALD) to hydrocinnamyl alcohol is kinetically and thermodynamically challenging due to the competitive reactivity of ,-unsaturated aldehyde. In addition, conventional noble-metal based high pressure catalytic system remains technically complex and reduce process sustainability at industrial scale. In this context, noble metal free bifunctional Cu/CeO2-MgO catalysts have been developed through combustion assisted method and investigated for chemoselective continuous hydrogenation of CALD at ambient pressure. The powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies showed MgO induced CeO2 lattice distortion and uniform Cu dispersion, whereas Raman and XPS studies confirmed the enrichment of oxygen vacancies and strengthened metal support interaction. Among these, the C5CM catalysts demonstrated exceptional activity with >95% conversion and >90% chemoselectivity towards hydrocinnamyl alcohol (HCOL) and maintaining stable production up to 26 h of continuous time-on-stream. Under optimal conditions, the green chemistry metric studies exhibit the 90% atom utilization, an E-factor of 0.064 and a PMI of 1.47, highlighting the economic significance of this catalytic process.

This work reveals the morphology-driven catalytic activity of Co ₃ O ₄ nanospheres for quinoline synthesis under green reaction conditions, highlighting its potential for oxidative dehydrogenation and drug development applications.

Ultrasonic pretreatment of gel composition followed by hydrothermal synthesis produces the nanocrystallite zeolite beta (ZB) with crystal sizes of 10.3, 22.6, and 9.1 nm for ZB-1, ZB-2, and ZB-3, respectively. The effect of ultrasonic pretreatment and the (SiO₂/Al₂O₃) ratio of gel composition on physical, textural properties, and also on the catalytic activity of ZB catalysts with increasing time on stream (TOS) was investigated. The specific surface area and mesopore volume for ZB-1, ZB-2, and ZB-3 are 438, 380, and 429 m²/g and 0.17, 0.05, and 0.14 cm³/g, respectively. The activity studies of ZB-1 and ZB-3 catalysts were confirmed that the anisole conversion initially increased with TOS until it attained the maximum value and then started decreasing further with TOS due to the deactivation of the catalyst caused by the strong interaction of the product with the acidic sites in the mesopore region. However, in the case of ZB-2, the anisole conversion (>45%) was sustained for a longer TOS due to its smaller particle size, low mesopore volume, and more acidic sites in the micropore volume that are inclusively made for retardation in the catlytic deactivation rate. The CHNS and TGA analysis of the spent catalysts confirm that ZB-1 and ZB-3 catalysts are susceptible for a significant coke formation attributed due to strong product retention in their large mesopore volume, which lead to the catalytic deactivation.

A new facile synthesis of ordered mesoporous aluminosilicates has been developed and applied for the efficient catalytic synthesis of N‐benzyl secondary amines under ligand and base‐free conditions. The MAS(38) catalyst with a well‐ordered mesoporous structure and strong acidic sites was used for acid‐catalyzed organic transformations and its operational simplicity and ease of its isolation procedure make it an attractive alternative to current methodologies.