Synthesis of CoFe2O4@Pd/Activated carbon nanocomposite as a recoverable catalyst for the reduction of nitroarenes in water

Abstract

Efficient reduction of nitro compounds into amines is an important industrial transformation. So, it is a great deal to design new catalysts for efficient reduction of the nitro compounds especially in water. In this work, a new magnetic Pd/activated carbon nanocomposite (CoFe2O4@Pd/AC) was synthesized via metal-impregnation-pyrolysis method. The CoFe2O4@Pd/AC was fully characterized by FT-IR, PXRD, FESEM, TEM, VSM, EDX-mapping and BET techniques. The results showed that CoFe2O4@Pd/AC is a highly reactive and easily recoverable magnetic catalyst for the reduction of the nitro compounds by using NaBH4 in water. For instance, aniline was obtained in high yield (99%) after 75 ​min at 25 ̊C by using just 6 ​mg of the catalyst. In addition, CoFe2O4@Pd/AC was recovered by a simple magnetic decantation and it exhibits stable activity and remains intact during the catalytic process with no significant loss in activity (8 cycles).