Porous carbon‐supported CoPd nanoparticles: High‐performance reduction reaction of nitrophenol

Abstract Magnetic porous carbon composite was synthesized from zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF‐12) and used as a support material to fabricate CoPd nanoparticles decorated NPC@ZIF‐12 nanocatalyst. The structure of CoPd@NPC@ZIF‐12 has been characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X‐ray diffraction (XRD), Raman, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP‐MS) techniques. The catalytic reduction reaction of nitrophenols (NP) to aminophenols (AP) was successfully achieved by CoPd@NPC@ZIF‐12 nanocatalyst. When the catalytic performance of the catalyst was compared with other reported catalysts, the performance of the catalyst and reusability was found much better. This better catalytic activity of the CoPd@NPC@ZIF‐12 nanocatalyst may be attributed to facilitating the mass transfer of the nitro compound and the wettability of catalyst caused by the high nitrogen content of the carbon matrix and to the synergistic effect of Co and Pd nanoparticles. The CoPd@NPC@ZIF‐12 nanocatalyst showed perfect catalytic activity in the reduction of 4‐nitrophenol (4‐NP), 3‐nitrophenol (3‐NP), and 2,4‐nitrophenol (2,4‐DNP) reactions with high turnover frequency (TOF) values of 1679, 2687, and 1014 h −1 , respectively. The reusability experiments of the CoPd@NPC@ZIF‐12 nanocatalyst showed that the catalytic activity of the CoPd@NPC@ZIF‐12 nanocatalyst was almost retained after 10 consecutive reaction runs. The SEM, XRD, and FTIR analyses of the 10 times used CoPd@NPC@ZIF‐12 nanocatalyst showed that there were limited changes in the structure of the CoPd@NPC@ZIF‐12 nanocatalyst. This highly active, magnetically separable, and recyclable CoPd@NPC@ZIF‐12 catalyst exhibits better catalytic activity than commercial Pd/C catalysts.