Highly active graphene-supported palladium-nickel alloy nanoparticles for catalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol

In recent years, research groups have initiated examining graphene, a beneficial carbon nanostructure, as the catalyst supporting material and has ascertained that graphene can improve the electrocatalytic activity more effectively. In this work, graphene supported palladium-nickel alloy was synthesized by cost effective chemical reduction method using sodium borohydride. The synthesized Pd-Ni alloy was anchored onto the reduced graphene oxide by ultrasonication. The structural characteristics of the prepared materials are characterized using XRD, FTIR spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy. The compositional analysis has been studied using Atomic absorption spectroscopy. Both the Atomic absorption spectroscopy and Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy confirms the presence of nickel and palladium. The HRTEM micrographs were taken to view the surface morphology of the nanosized particles. Catalytic activity of the prepared alloys for 4-Nitrophenol (4-NP) were analyzed using UV-Vis spectroscopy. This simple and effective system can be protracted to other alloy/graphene nanomaterials, and have wide applications in biosensing, fuel cells, and other fields. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.