Highly-dispersed Ni3Fe alloy nanoparticles anchored on MgAl-LDO for efficient catalytic amination of KA-oil to cyclohexylamine

The partial oxidation of cyclohexylamine to cyclohexanone oxime provides the new approach for preparation of caprolactam, which is vital important monomer of nylon-6 fibers and resins. In this work, a simple and efficient reductive amination of KA-oil to cyclohexylamine was developed over hydrotalcite-derived 9 %Ni-3 %Fe/MgAl-LDO catalyst. The results showed that the 9 %Ni-3 %Fe/MgAl-LDO catalyst exhibited the excellent catalytic performance, 97 % of cyclohexanol conversion and 99 % of cyclohexanone conversion were achieved with 98 % of selectivity to cyclohexylamine over 100 h at 170 °C. The highly-dispersed Ni3Fe alloy nanoparticles anchored on MgAl-LDO are responsible for the excellent catalytic performance and stability of catalyst. Moreover, the Ni sites of Ni3Fe alloy (1 1 1) facet as dominant catalytic active sites were identified by DFT calculation. The present work provides a new approach for green preparation of cyclohexylamine from reductive amination of KA-oil over hydrotalcite-derived 9 %Ni-3 %Fe/MgAl-LDO catalyst, and has important industrial application prospects.