Mukhtar Ahmad Wani

Catalysis is an area of research which still continues to be a premier area of chemistry. It plays a key role in modern chemical technology. There are a large number of important organic transformations such as oxidation, hydrogenation, hydroformylation, carbonylation, polymerization and various coupling reactions. The majority of these novel catalysts are based on silica, primarily since silica displays many advantageous properties excellent stability (chemical and thermal), high surface area, good accessibility, and organic groups can be robustly anchored to the surface, to provide catalytic centers. However, it does have drawbacks it has limited stability in aqueous especially basic conditions, and it cannot easily be formed into membranes or into other forms which could be attached to novel reactors for use in intensive processing applications.

The Complexes of Co (II) and Ni (II) with amino acid cysteine were synthesized and characterized by FT-IR and spectrafluorometric Studies. The FT-IR spectra shows some new band which confirms that the complex is formed. The spectrafluorometric study of amino acid metal complexes shows that excitation wave length decrease with decrease in the polarity of medium. The amino acid nickel (II) complex exhibits a strong fluorescence emission at 340 nm in water medium. This may be tentatively assigned to the ligand to metal charge transfer (LMCT). In these complexes the amino acid coordinated to 1:2 with metal and they exhibits octahedral geometry. The catalytic activities of these complexes were studied in olefins using eco-friendly nontoxic molecular oxygen as oxidant.

Co(II), Fe (III) and Cu (II) metal complexes of Schiff base derived from ethylenediamine, succinic acid and formaldehyde. The newly synthesized Schiff base complexes were characterized by elemental analysis, Melting point, conductivity, IR and UV-VIS spectral methods. The complexes have been tested for their antimicrobial activity against bacteria and fungi. The anti- microbial activity was determined in Mueller Hinton media (M H Media).