Preparation, characterization and catalytic activity of MoO3/CeO2–ZrO2 solid heterogeneous catalyst for the synthesis of β-enaminones

A series of CeO2–ZrO2 with different molybdenum (8–20 wt% MoO3) loaded materials were prepared by homogeneous co-precipitation followed by impregnation method. The prepared materials were tested for their catalytic activity performance in the synthesis of β-enaminones by condensation of various anilines with dimedone under solvent-free conditions in microwave providing excellent yields within short reaction time. An obtained result reveals that, catalytic activity increases with increase in Mo wt% loading. The particle size of prepared materials was estimated using Debye–Scherrer equation. Particle size increases with increase in Mo wt% loading providing nanosized particle ranging from 7.11 to 42.09 nm. The synthesized materials were characterized by means of X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) techniques.