Turkish perlite supported nickel oxide as the heterogeneous acid catalyst for a series of Claisen–Schmidt condensation reactions

Potentially active and eco-friendly solid acid catalysts have been synthesized by loading different weight percentages (10, 15, and 50) of nickel oxide on thermally activated Turkish perlite through the deposition-precipitation method. Structural features of prepared catalysts were analyzed using BET surface area analysis, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope (SEM), SEM-EDX, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR), pyridine adsorbed FT-IR, UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) techniques. Pyridine adsorbed FT-IR analysis confirmed the presence of the optimum amount of Bronsted acidic sites in a catalyst having 15 wt.