Design, preparation and characterization of a novel BiFeO3/CuWO4 heterojunction catalyst for one-pot synthesis of trisubstituted imidazoles

In this work, a novel heterojunction catalyst has been synthesized and employed as a highly efficient catalyst for one-pot synthesis of substituted imidazoles. Analytical methods including Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Energy- dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Vibrating Sample Magnometer (VSM) were used for the catalyst characterization. Moreover, the catalyst was also recovered and reused five times without remarkable decrease in its catalytic activity. Compared to the classical methodologies, this method illustrated significant advantages including low loading of the catalyst, short reaction times, high to excellent yields, easy separation and purification of the products.