One-Pot Green Synthesis of Ag-Decorated SnO2 Microsphere: an Efficient and Reusable Catalyst for Reduction of 4-Nitrophenol

• Published in: Nanoscale research letters Vol. 12; no. 1; pp. 435 - 10
• Main Authors: Hu, Min, Zhang, Zhenwei, Luo, Chenkun, Qiao, Xiuqing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.12.2017; Springer Nature B.V; SpringerOpen
• Subjects: 4-Nitrophenol; Ag-decorated SnO2; Aminophenol; Catalysts; Catalytic; Catalytic activity; Chemical synthesis; Chemistry and Materials Science; Decoration; Hierarchical; Hydrothermal; Materials Science; Microsphere; Microspheres; Molecular Medicine; Nano Express; Nanochemistry; Nanoparticles; Nanoscale Science and Technology; Nanosheets; Nanostructure; Nanotechnology; Nanotechnology and Microengineering; Nitrophenol; p-Aminophenol; p-Nitrophenol; Reduction; Silver; Time dependence; Tin dioxide; X ray photoelectron spectroscopy; Ag-decorated SnO; Hierarchical; Catalytic; 4-Nitrophenol; Microsphere; Hydrothermal
• ISSN: 1931-7573; 1556-276X
• DOI: 10.1186/s11671-017-2204-8

In this paper, hierarchical Ag-decorated SnO 2 microspheres were synthesized by a facile one-pot hydrothermal method. The resulting composites were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, XPS, BET, and FTIR analysis. The catalytic performances of the samples were evaluated with the reduction of 4-nitrophenol to 4-aminophenol by potassium borohydride (KBH 4 ) as a model reaction. Time-dependent experiments indicated that the hierarchical microspheres assembled from SnO 2 and Ag nanoparticles can be formed when the react time is less than 10 h. With the increase of hydrothermal time, SnO 2 nanoparticles will self-assemble into SnO 2 nanosheets and Ag nanoparticles decorated SnO 2 nanosheets were obtained. When evaluated as catalyst, the obtained Ag-decorated SnO 2 microsphere prepared for 36 h exhibited excellent catalytic performance with normalized rate constant ( κ nor ) of 6.20 min −1 g −1 L, which is much better than that of some previous reported catalysts. Moreover, this Ag-decorated SnO 2 microsphere demonstrates good reusability after the first five cycles. In addition, we speculate the formation mechanism of the hierarchical Ag-decorated SnO 2 microsphere and discussed the possible origin of the excellent catalytic activity.