Reduced Graphene Oxide-catalyzed Dehydrogenation Of Hydrazo Compounds

Azo compounds are very important organic compounds which have been widelyused in industry and life. Nowadays, there are many methods to prepare azocompounds. The well known methods include diazotization-coupling reaction ofaromatic amines, oxidative coupling of aromatic amines, reductive coupling ofnitroarenes, Wallach rearrangement of azoxy compounds and oxidativedehydrogenation of hydrazo compounds. In these methods, the use of stoichiometricor excess unclean oxidants were commonly inevitable, and these oxidative systemsoften generated wastes which were harmfull to our environment and difficult torecycle. Therefore, the greener methods to prepare azo compounds are still veryimportant.Since2004, graphene has attracted unprecedented attention in the scientificcommunity. Because of its excellent mechanical, electronic and thermalcharacteristics, graphene have wide applications in the fields of chemistry, biology,materials and so on. Furthermore, modified graphene showed excellent catalyticactivities in diverse organic reactions. In addition, graphene itself has catalytic activityfor some reactions, such as reduction of aromatic nitro compounds to aromatic amineswith hydrazine.In this thesis, we prepared graphite oxide (GO) by Hummers method, then obtainedreduced graphene oxide (rGO) by reduction with hydrazine hydrate. The catalyst wascharacterized by FT-IR, TGA, XRD and TEM. Then we used rGO as an efficientcatalyst in the aerobic oxidative dehydrogenation of hydrazo compounds for the firsttime. Azo compounds were obtained in high yields under mild reaction conditions inshort time. The method is simple, safe, and environmental friendly. Mostimportmently the catalyst can be reused at least five times without remarkable loss ofcatalytic activity.