Catalysis by hydrotalcite materials

The search and exploitation of selective new catalytic material based on abundant materials in earth have been always interesting and also challenging. Hydrotalcites both natural and synthetic ones have been extensively examined in recent times as catalytic-materials for a variety of organic transformations. In all these reactions reported in literature, hydrotalcites have been precursors and active phases mostly resemble the conventional mixed oxides though they exhibit totally different catalytic property in terms of the Turn Over Number (TON) and also selectivity. Some of these catalysts derived from hydrotalcites promote typical base-catalyzed reactions. These systems also exhibit both acid and base sites adjacent to each other and thus responsible for the observed unusual selectivity.