Mesoporous silica dispersed Co3O4-CuO nanocomposite and its catalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol

Abstract

Herein, a catalyst Co3O4-CuO nanocomposite uniformly dispersed on mesoporous silica nanospheres (MSN) has been successfully synthesized through hydrothermal method. The synthesis method is simple and convenient, the prepared Co3O4-CuO nanocomposites have high dispersibility, and the support SiO2 maintains the structure of mesoporous nanospheres. What’s more, the porous structure enables the obtained composite to have a high specific surface area (128.89 m2 g−1), which is easier to be contacted by catalytic substrates. The catalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) to 4-aminophenol (4-AP) was investigated. The results show that the nanocomposite catalyst Co3O4-CuO@MSN present good catalytic performance, which can completely convert 4-NP to 4-AP in 200 s and the reaction rate constant k is up to 0.149 s−1. More important, the possible degradation mechanism was also proposed in the paper.