Carbon derived from orange peel waste for preparation of benign bimetallic catalyst in organic reactions

In this work, a convenient approach has been applied to discover the potential valorization of biomass waste such as orange peel in which PdCu-based nanostructured systems were synthesized via a one-step in-situ dry-milling approach to obtain the benign bimetallic catalysts with different palladium(Pd) and Copper(Cu) loadings on the orange peel support (Pd1%Cu1%, Pd0.3%Cu0.7%, Pd0.5%Cu0.5%, Pd0.5%Cu1%). Catalytic applications of these new composites were investigated in the Sonogashira-Hagihara coupling reaction as well as the Sonogashira–click reaction sequence to the preparation of substituted 4-aryl-1,2,3-triazoles and reduction of nitroaromatics under mild reaction conditions. Catalytic tests with the four activated carbons catalysts showed that the C@Pd1%Cu1% catalyst was the most active in the Sonogashira-Hagihara coupling reaction compared to the other catalysts. Also, the C@Pd0.5%Cu0.5% catalyst showed the highest catalytic activity in the reduction of 1-chloro-4-nitrobenzene and 4-nitrophenol in comparison with other prepared carbon catalysts.