NH2-coordinately immobilized tris(8-quinolinolato)iron onto the silica coated magnetite nanoparticle: Fe3O4@SiO2-FeQ3 as a selective Fenton-like catalyst for clean oxidation of sulfides.

A green, robust and eco-friendly procedure for the oxidation of aromatic organic sulfides to sulfones using H2O2 catalyzed by NH2-coordinately immobilized tris(8-quinolinolato)iron onto the silica coated magnetite (Fe3SiO6) has been developed. Physicochemical properties of the resulting nanoparticles were investigated by means of techniques including X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, vibrating sample magnetometer, atomic adsorption spectroscopy and FT-IR spectroscopy. The catalytic activity of sulfides oxidation showed that this atom-economical protocol provided great yields of various sulfones and allowed the sulfide function reaction conducting under the mild conditions thus to prevent the sulfide being over-oxidized to sulfoxides. The Fe3O4@SiO2-FeQ3 catalysts are magnetically separable and kept stable after recycling for 7 consecutive runs without detectable activity loss.