Highly Efficient Silver Catalyst Supported by a Spherical Covalent Organic Framework for the Continuous Reduction of 4-Nitrophenol
Ning Wang, Fushuai Wang, Fei Pan, Shunyang Yu, Dawei Pan
Abstract
Developing new materials and novel technologies for the highly efficient treatment of toxic organic pollutants is highly desirable. Chemical reduction based on heterogeneous substrate/noble metal catalysts and the reducing agent NaBH4 has become an effective method in recent years. Here, a spherical covalent organic framework (SCOF) was designed to provide basic sites for Ag ions, by which small Ag NPs were immobilized on the SCOF to form Ag NPs@SCOF microspheres. The prepared microspheres exhibited a high catalytic reduction ability toward 4-nitrophenol (4-NP). An optimized permeation flux of 2000 L m–2 h–1 (LMH) and a more than 99% 4-NP reduction efficiency were obtained with flow-through experiments, which are far better than the reported results (below 200 LMH). Moreover, the microspheres could maintain stable catalytic performance under a continuous flow-through process. Our work provides an efficient material and technology that can be applied to easily treat toxic organic pollutants.