Preparation of Cu-W Nanoflakes and their Catalytic Performance for the Hydrogenation of 4-Nitrophenol

4-Nitrophenol (4-NP) is one of the most common organic pollutants in industrial waste waters due to its solubility and toxicity. The catalytic degradation of 4-NP to 4-aminophenol (4-AP) is an economical and sustainable process, which transfers waste and toxicity to profitable materials. Fabricating metal nanoparticle based efficient heterogeneous catalysts is crucial to treating these kinds of pollutants. Here in, Cu-W nanoflakes (Cu-W NFs) with thin sheet like structure were prepared by a simple one-pot method by using polyoxometalate as precursor. The Cu-W NFs served in hydrogenation of 4-NP reaction as catalyst, achieved high conversion with rate constant (k) of 2.584x10(-2) s(-1). Notably, the sustainable catalyst Cu-W NFs exhibit no significant degradation of catalytic activity over 16 cycles, manifested good durability and high conversion (>91 %). Also, the reduction of potassium ferricyanide can also be catalyzed by Cu-W NFs with high efficiency. This work provided a concise approach for fabricating highly effective catalyst and was expected to be a potential universal method to obtain sustainable competitive catalyst for utility in treating pollution.