Gold, silver and nickel nanoparticle anchored cellulose nanofiber composites as highly active catalysts for the rapid and selective reduction of nitrophenols in water

Mayakrishnan Gopiraman; Dian Deng; Somasundaram Saravanamoorthy; Ill-Min Chung; Ick Soo Kim

doi:10.1039/c7ra10489h

Gold, silver and nickel nanoparticle anchored cellulose nanofiber composites as highly active catalysts for the rapid and selective reduction of nitrophenols in water

RSC Adv. 2018 Jan 17;8(6):3014-3023. doi: 10.1039/c7ra10489h. eCollection 2018 Jan 12.

Authors

Mayakrishnan Gopiraman¹, Dian Deng², Somasundaram Saravanamoorthy³, Ill-Min Chung¹, Ick Soo Kim²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Applied Bioscience, College of Life & Environment Science, Konkuk University 120 Neungdong-ro, Gwangjin-gu Seoul 05029 South Korea imcim@konkuk.ac.kr illminchung@gmail.com.
² Nano Fusion Technology Research Group, Division of Frontier Fibers, Institute for Fiber Engineering (IFES), Interdisciplinary Cluster for Cutting Edge Research (ICCER), Shinshu University Tokida 3-15-1 Ueda Nagano prefecture 386-8567 Japan kimicksoo.gr@gmail.com.
³ Department of Chemistry, National Institute of Technology Tiruchirappalli 620 015 India.

Abstract

Highly active metal nanoparticle (MNP) supported cellulose nanofiber (CNF) composites (Au/CNF, Ni/CNF and Ag/CNF) were prepared for the reduction of 4- and 2-nitrophenols (4-NP and 2-NP) in water. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images showed that the ultrafine nanoparticles (Au, Ni and Ag NPs) were uniformly deposited on CNFs surface. The content of Au (9.7 wt%), Ni (21.5 wt%) and Ag (22.6 wt%) in Au/CNF, Ni/CNF and Ag/CNF respectively was determined by energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and inductive coupled plasma-mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS) analysis. The chemical state of the MNPs in Au/CNF, Ni/CNF and Ag/CNF was determined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The significant metal-support interaction was studied by means of XPS. The Au/CNF, Ni/CNF and Ag/CNF demonstrated excellent catalytic activity towards the reduction of nitrophenols to aminophenols in water. To our delight, even a very low amount of catalyst was also found to be good enough to achieve 100% reduction of 4- and 2-NP with a higher reaction rate (within 5 min). The best rate constant (k _app) values were determined for the cellulose nanocomposites. To the best our knowledge, Au/CNF, Ni/CNF and Ag/CNF are the most efficient nanocatalysts for the reduction of 4- and 2-NP reported to date. The catalytic performance of Au/CNF, Ni/CNF and Ag/CNF was compared with previously reported results. A possible mechanism has been proposed for these catalytic systems.