A comparative study of catalytic functionalities of Ni/RHSiO2 and Ni/RHAC’s for nitrobenzene hydrogenation

Highly dispersed nickel nanoparticles on supports such as rice extracted SiO2 , and Activated carbon’s were prepared by impregnation and reductive deposition method by using hydrazine as reducing agent. The high light of this work is to compare the characteristics and activity of the catalysts prepared by both impregnation and reductive deposition method. All catalysts were characterized by various techniques such as BET, SEM, XRD, reduction behavior by using TPR technique. XRD results suggests that all the catalytic systems showing peaks corresponding to the supports as well as metal precursor. Ni/RHSiO2, catalyst prepared by reductive deposition method show excellent conversion of nitrobenzene to aniline. This is due to the presence of higher number of well dispersed surface Ni species than other catalysts as evidenced by SEM studies. TPR results reveal the formation of metallic Ni species in the reductive deposition method.