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/MgAlLDO 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 (111) 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.