An efficient catalyst for rapid restoration of highly concentrated 4-nitrophenol effluent at room temperature: ZnWO4 nanoplates loaded with CuO nanoparticles

It is still a hard problem to rapidly restore highly concentrated 4-nitrophenol effluent at room temperature. In this work, ZnWO4 nanoplates loaded with CuO nanoparticles were prepared. Meanwhile, their catalytic activity was investigated in order to rapidly remove 4-nitrophenol at room temperature. We find that the CuO nanoparticles loaded ZnWO4 nanoplates possesses high catalytic activity and recyclability for rapid restoration of highly concentrated 4-nitrophenol effluent. As for the 4-nitrophenol solution with the concentration of 1.0 × 10−3 mol L−1 (100 mL), 4-nitrophenol can be removed almost entirely in 9 min when the CuO nanoparticles loaded ZnWO4 nanoplates are used as a catalyst. The apparent rate constant of the 4-nitrophenol reduction is almost eleven times that over Ag nanoparticles. Moreover, this catalyst can still exhibit outstanding activity when NaBH4 is partially replaced by methyl alcohol.