Lipophilic perlite-supported Palladium nanoparticles

Because of difficulty of recycling/reusing catalyst from the reaction mixture, catalyst separation is a critically important issue in the chemical industry. Thus, the use of support for the preparation of heterogeneous catalysts is often desirable from the perspective of process development due to their easy handling, simple recovery, and recycling [1]. However in the case of nanoparticle-based catalysts supports play role of stabilizer for nanoparticles. Natural aluminium silicate such as perlite can act as an excellent support especially for nanoparticles [2]. In this work we have presented a new green, simple and inexpensive method of making palladium nanoparticle (PdNP) catalyst supported on lipophilic expanded perlite as an abundantly available aluminium silicate. Lipophilization of expanded perlite has been performed by Zycosil. Zycosil is low-cost and industrially available organosilicon-based material and the only water soluble product in the world that is used waterproofing of masonry building material, concrete, limestone, marble, stone, stucco, clay tile, plaster, sand, soil, and aggregates. TEM image of lipophilic expanded perlite-supported PdNPs (PdNP@LEP) indicates the formation of 10-20 nm sized palladium nanoparticles. The catalyst is quite effective for the oxidation of benzylic and aliphatic alcohols under atmospheric pressure of air in aqueous phase. Moreover, we tested the cytotoxic potential of the PdNP@LEP on the erythroleukemia K562 cancer cell lines. The K562 cells (1×105 cells/100 µL/well) were incubated for 24 h with serial dilution of PdNP@LEP (0, 50,100,200 and 400 µM). After incubation, the survivability of present cells was determined by neutral red uptake assay MTT reduction methods. MTT data showed that the PdNP@LEP had a profound cytotoxic effects against K562 cell-line in a dose-dependent manner (inhibitory concentration (IC50) value: 90.11±4.56 µM). Nevertheless, Based on NR uptake assay, it seems that the PdNP@LEP only at a high dose (400 µM) can interfere with cell membrane functions. In conclusion, PdNP@LEP may provide a favorable cytotoxicity against K562 cancer cell-line by damaging the electron transfer function by mitochondria