Enhanced catalytic activity of nanosilver with lignin/polyacrylamide hydrogel for reducing p-nitrophenol

Lignin, as the second largest natural polymer in nature, has great practical application value. Three-dimensional silver/lignin/PAM hydrogels have been successfully prepared via a rapid and convenient assembly process, showing good catalytic hydrogenation ability and stability in batch and dynamic catalytic processes of p-nitrophenol. It can be seen from the characterization results that abundant amino groups in the catalyst carrier can disperse silver ions homogeneously and limit the growth of silver nanoparticles in the reduction process with sodium borohydride. At room temperature, the catalytic process can be completed in about 5 min by using this catalyst and can maintain about 100 min of efficient catalysis in the dynamic catalytic experiment, the conversion rate can reach about 80%. After 10 times use, the catalyst still maintained good catalytic performance and the conversion rate could be kept at 97%.