ORGANIC-INORGANIC HYBRID CATALYSTS BASED ON IMIDAZOLIUM AND THIAZOLIUM SALTS

In the last years, great attention was focused on immobilized ionic liquids for their application in the field of catalysis. The main challenge is represented by the possibility of combining the benefits of the ionic liquids to that of the supports. In order to achieve this ambitious objective both the choice of the support and the functionalization strategy are of fundamental importance. In this context, one of the aims of this doctoral project was to develop novel catalysts based on covalently mono- or multilayer imidazolium or thiazolium networks onto a high ordered mesoporous silica or carbon nanotubes materials. The second goal of this PhD thesis was to design novel imidazolium based catalysts using hybrid organic-inorganic compounds, known as POSS. All the compounds were extensively characterized using a broad series of characterization techniques in order to study their structure and to understand and justify their catalytic activity. From a general point of view, the main interest of this thesis was to developed novel organic-inorganic hybrid systems that show improved catalytic performances in both terms of yield and selectivity compared to the existing catalysts. The imidazolium and thiazolium based solids have found applications for various reactions of relevant academic and industrial interest such as etherification reactions, the conversion of carbon dioxide, or as systems to stabilize palladium nanoparticles in order to catalyze C-C cross coupling reactions.