Chemist develops flower-like catalysts from graphene

A RUDN chemist and colleagues from Iran have developed a new strategy for producing hollow, porous catalysts for the Heck coupling reaction. These catalysts are characterized by a flower-like structure. They consist of graphene, on the surface of which layered aluminum-cobalt hydroxides and palladium nanoparticles are deposited. The resulting material reduces the synthesis time of the substance necessary to obtain dyes—trans-stilbene—by 10 times without reducing the yield of the target product. The developed catalysts can be applied in stereoselective synthesis in pharmaceuticals, the preparation of organic dyes, and in agrochemistry. The results were published in the journal Catalysis Letters.