Metal organic framework derived magnetic porous carbon composite supported gold and palladium nanoparticles as highly efficient and recyclable catalysts for reduction of 4-nitrophenol and hydrodechlorination of 4-chlorophenol

The development of low cost noble metal nanocatalysts with high activity and selectivity, high catalytic performance, convenient separation, and reusability is a significant challenge. Herein, the magnetic porous carbon (MPC) composite synthesized from metal organic framework (MOF) was used as a catalyst support to fabricate gold (Au) and palladium (Pd) nanoparticle (NP) based nanocatalysts. The MPC not only provided a large surface area and mesopores on which the active centers (Au and Pd NPs) were finely dispersed, but also exhibited superparamagnetic behaviour that enabled the magnetic separation and convenient recovery of the nanocatalysts from the reaction mixture. Thus, the nanocatalysts were repeatedly used without loss of catalytic efficiency. Both the Au/MPC and Pd/MPC nanocatalysts showed excellent catalytic activity for the reduction of 4-nitrophenol. Moreover, the Pd/MPC nanocatalyst exhibited higher efficiency toward hydrodechlorination of 4-chlorophenol compared to the other reported catalysts. This study indicated that the noble metal NPs (NMNPs) supported on MOF-derived MPC materials could act as promising catalysts exhibiting potential applications in numerous NMNP based catalytic reactions.