Urushibara nickel is a nickel-based hydrogenation catalyst.
For most hydrogenations, it performs comparably to W-7 grade Raney nickel.
U-Ni-B is prepared by digesting with a base such as sodium hydroxide.
[3] Urushibara iron is limited as a catalyst due to its relatively low activity toward most functional groups, however; it does finds some use in the partial hydrogenation of alkynes to alkenes.
The first of these catalysts were discovered by Yoshiyuki Urushibara in 1951, while doing research on the reduction of estrone to estradiol.