Synthesis of Ag/GO nanocomposite with promising photocatalytic ability for reduction reaction of p-nitrophenol

Abstract

p-Aminophenol (PAP) is an important intermediate reagent in the synthesis of paracetamol, widely used as an analgesic and antipyretic drug. Therefore, finding an effective catalyst to improve PAP synthesis efficiency is worth studying. Among those studies, nanocomposite is the most promising material. In this study, Ag/GO nanocomposites were synthesized by reducing silver nitrate on graphene oxide (GO) with sodium borohydride as a reducing agent and characterized by SEM, EDX, XRD and UV–vis methods. The catalytic ability was investigated based on the hydrogenation reaction of p-nitrophenol (PNP). We successfully synthesized Ag/GO nanocomposite with relatively homogeneous distributions and similar particle sizes. The results showed that Ag/GO nanocomposite has an excellent catalytic activity with the yield of reduction reaction at 97%, 3 min. Moreover, this photocatalyst can easily be recovered and reused three times without any reaction efficiency reduction. We also successfully synthesized and crystallized PAP with high purity and the total yield of 45.82%. The results show that Ag/GO nanocomposite is an excellent catalyst for high-performance reactions with many useful properties, such as easily recovered and repetitive used. On top of that, Ag/GO nanocomposite is safe, less toxic and environmentally friendly.