Superparamagnetic magnesium ferrite nanoparticles: a magnetically reusable and clean heterogeneous catalyst

A highly efficient magnetically recoverable nano-catalyst was fabricated. The material synthesized has been fully characterized by vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM), X-ray powder diffraction, scanning and transmission electron microscopy, FT-IR, and the Brunauer-Emmett–Teller (BET) isotherm method. An investigation of its catalytic activity showed it to be a unique heterogeneous Lewis acid catalyst for the synthesis of α-hydroxy and α-aminophosphonates, giving a total turnover number ⩾450 for five consecutive runs. The catalyst is superparamagnetic having a ‘magnetization (left behind after an external magnetic field is removed)’ to ‘magnetic saturation’ ratio of about 0.0008, and thus could be easily separated by the use of an external magnetic field and was not agglomerated by exposure to magnetic fields.