Materials scientists at Lehigh University and catalyst chemists at Cardiff University have uncovered secrets of the "nanoworld" that promise to lead to cleaner methods of producing, among other things, spices and perfumes. The materials scientists, headed by Christopher Kiely of Lehigh, have determined the structure of a type of gold-palladium nanoparticle, which is the active component of a new environmentally friendly catalyst that promotes the oxidation of primary alcohols to aldehydes.

The researchers reported their results January 20, 2006 in Science magazine, one of the world's top science journals. The article was titled "Solvent-free oxidation of primary alcohols to aldehydes using titania-supported gold-palladium catalysts."

The oxidation of primary alcohols to aldehydes is of fundamental importance to the chemical, pharmaceutical and perfume industries.

The oxidation of aromatic primary alcohols, such as vanillyl and cinnamyl alcohol, is of particular importance in the manufacture of perfumes and flavorings. Almost 95 percent of the worlds' vanilla (vanillyl aldehyde) is synthetically manufactured.

Benzaldehyde is also a key intermediate in the production of many fine chemicals in the agrochemical and pharmaceutical industries.

Such oxidation reactions have always been performed using permanganates or chromates, but these reagents are expensive and have serious toxicity issues associated with them. This new catalyst, consisting of gold-palladium nanoparticles dispersed on a titanium oxide support, allows this reaction to take place using oxygen under mild solvent-free conditions.

The new catalyst system was developed by a group headed by Prof. Graham Hutchings at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom.

(www.physorg.com)