Investigation of the Role of Zirconia and Zirconia-containing Systems as Catalysts in Organic Transformations

Abstract

: This review article discusses the applications of zirconia as a catalyst to promote various organic reactions and transformations. The article is subdivided into four main parts: 1) introduction, which consists of the history and introduction of zirconia, elaboration of its synthetic procedures, its application in various fields of science and technology with specified examples, and previously published review articles on ZrO2; 2) applications of sole zirconia and zirconia-based catalytic systems to promote various organic transformations, subdivided into oxidation reactions, hydrolysis and methanation reactions, reduction and hydrogenation reactions, furfural and synthesis of its derivatives, and miscellaneous reactions; 3) applications of sole zirconia and nanosized ZrO2 to catalyze organic reactions and MCRs, classified as two-component reactions, three-component reactions (by a glance at pseudo 3-CRs), and four-component reactions (by a glance at pseudo 4-CRs); and 4) applications of zirconia-containing catalytic systems to catalyze organic transformations and MCRs classified as two-component reactions, three-component reactions, and four-component and higher-component reactions. According to investigations, some of the zirconia-based catalysts exist in nano-sized systems. Moreover, the literature survey contains publications up to the end of July 2023.