Title : Catalytic reduction of hazardous nitroaromatic groups
Abstract:
In recent years, green chemistry has gained significant attention to overcome the issue relating to the environmental contamination encountered by the worldwide population. The processes that prevent the use of organic solvents to convert harmful organic waste into low toxicity, reusable compounds in aqueous solutions under appropriate conditions are of great importance to scientists. In this context, recovery of nitrophenol (NP) compounds has been an important research area in recent times. The most common organic pollutants in industrial and agricultural wastewater are NPs. NPs are considered among the 126 priority pollutants and hazardous wastes by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) because of their high solubility in water, chemical stability, toxicity and persistence to environment and human health.
Catalytic reduction treatment technique has been introduced as a more sustainable method that can transform NPs into more eco-friendly products compared to other several advanced treatment techniques. More recently, various noble and transition metal nanoparticles including Au, Ag, Pt, Ni, Co, Cu, Ru and Pd nanoparticles have been widely used for the reduction of NPs as active catalysts. The size and shape of the preferred nanoparticles are very important parameters for their catalytic activity and selectivity in the chemical reactions. However, nanoparticles usually show low stability and such nanoparticles tend to aggregate because of their high surface energy. In order to solve this issue, it is a rational strategy to immobilize nanoparticles onto different appropriate supporting materials such as carbon-based materials (graphene, reduced graphene oxide), mesoporous silicas, metal oxides, and electrospun fibers.
