Abstract

For economic and ecological purposes, the design of stable and reusable noble metal nanoparticles in water has become a concern over the past few years. Among the various water-soluble protective agents, cyclodextrins proved to be attractive candidates to efficiently stabilize catalytically active nanospecies in aqueous media and also to improve the mass transfer in aqueous-organic two-phase systems. Various catalytic reactions such as arenes hydrogenations, olefins reduction or cross-coupling reactions were successfully achieved with good yields and selectivities according to the relevant choice of the cyclodextrins (cavity or functionalization).

Keywords: Nanoparticles, Noble metal, Cyclodextrins, Catalysis, Water