Preparation of spindle-shaped polyaniline supported Au catalysts with enhanced catalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol

Herein, several spindle-shaped polyaniline (PANI)/Au catalysts were prepared and evaluated in the reduction of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) to 4-aminophenol (4-AP) with NaBH₄ as the reducing agent. The spindle-shaped PANI support was directly synthesized via a facile interfacial polymerization method without using any templates. Au colloid nanoparticles (NPs) with a narrow size distribution (2~6 nm) were prepared via an Au sol method using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as a protecting agent and NaBH₄ as a reducing agent. The Au colloid NPs were deposited on the PANI support through an adsorption effect. These as-prepared PANI/Au catalysts were thoroughly characterized by TEM, FT-IR, XPS, and EDX. The reduction of 4-NP by NaBH₄ was used as a model reaction to evaluate the catalytic properties of the catalysts. Results showed that the as-prepared catalysts presented enhanced catalytic properties for the reduction of 4-NP to 4-AP.

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