Ni0 dominated Ni/MgAl-LDO catalyst for highly efficient reductive amination of acetone to isopropylamine

Abstract

The direct amination of alcohols (ketones) with ammonia to primary amines is a promising route. In this work, an environmentally friendly and efficient method for the synthesis of isopropylamine from the reductive amination of acetone over hydrotalcite-derived Ni/MgAl-LDO catalyst was successfully developed. The results demonstrated that the 12 %Ni/MgAl-LDO catalyst showed outstanding catalytic activity and stability, and 99.8 % of acetone conversion with 93.4 % of isopropylamine selectivity was still maintained over 100 h at 120 °C. The characterization results verified that 12 %Ni/MgAl-LDO catalyst possessed the highly dispersed and uniform Ni nanoparticles, which were responsible for its outstanding catalytic activity and stability. Futhermore, the DFT calculations results indicated that Ni sites of Ni (1 1 1) facet were acted as the catalytic active sites for reductive amination of acetone. This study provides a simple, low-cost and efficient approach for the production of isopropylamine, with promising prospects for industrial applications.