Study of lanthanides nanocrystals as heterogeneous catalyst

Abstract

This thesis focuses on utilizing lanthanide based nanocrystals for various form of catalysis and evaluating their effectiveness. We have characterized the nanocrystals in this studies in detailed. The nanocrystals synthesized were used in various reactions to show versatility. Chapter 2 analyses the effectiveness of lanthanide based nanoparticles as a Lewis acid catalyst. YbF3 nanoparticles in this study were synthesized through the co-precipitation method and characterized using transmission electron microscope (TEM), and x-ray diffraction (XRD). The light to heat efficiency of the crystals were determined. The nanoparticles were used as a photothermal Lewis acid catalyst for the reaction between epoxides and amines obtaining excellent yield. The catalyst showed great results even after being recycling. In chapter 3, we attempted to utilize chiral ligands with YbF3 nanocrystals to achieve enantioselectivity which was unsuccessful. We changed our approach into modifying YbF3 nanocrystals into a chiral catalyst. Which was unsuccessful due to the lack of a chiral environment on the surface of the particle. Which was identified using Spectroscopy methods like Uv-Vis absorption spectroscopy and florescence emission spectroscopy.