Three-dimensional Cu/C porous composite: Facile fabrication and efficient catalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol

Developing a facile method to fabricate new heterogeneous Metal-Organic Framework (MOFs) based catalysts with high catalytic activity and stability has drawn significant attention. Herein, we demonstrate a simple in-situ pyrolysis reduction strategy to fabricate a novel three-dimensional (3D) Cu-based catalyst, which displays an outstanding performance for the decomposition of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP). Detailed characterization including SEM, FTIR, XPS, ICP-OES, HRTEM, SAED, XRD and BET confirmed the formation of the Cu/C porous composites (Cu/C-PC). Taking advantage of enormous Cu particles in the composite as well as ultrahigh surface area (196.7 m²/g) of carbon support, Cu/C-PC presents prominent catalytic activity for the hydrogenation reduction 4-NP to 4-aminophenol (4-AP) with apparent rate constant (K_app) of 0.0267 s^-1 (the ratio of K_app to the catalyst amount is 119 s^-1 g^-1), which is dramatically higher than that previous reports. On the contrary, after being washed successively (Cu/C-PC-AW) by FeCl₃, HCl aqueous solution and deionized water, the Cu/C porous composite materials exhibit fairly weak catalytic activity. The catalytic performance of Cu/C-PC is better than Cu, Cu₂O and CuO nanoparticles as well as other catalysts in previous reports. Furthermore, Cu/C-PC shows excellent reusability, indicating its potential applications in treatment of water pollution.