Highly Efficient Electrospun Silver Decorated Graphene Oxide Nanocomposites on Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF@GO-Ag) Hybrid Membrane for Reduction of 4-Nitrophenol

Graphene oxide-silver poly(vinylidene fluoride) membranes (PVDF@GO-Ag) were successfully synthesized by the electrospinning method, which exhibited a high catalytic activity using the hydrogenation of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) as a model reaction in a batch reaction study. The hybrid membranes doped with 1 wt% GO and 2 wt% Ag (PVDF-1-2) exhibited the most desired performance for the catalytic reduction of 4-NP. Importantly, PVDF-1-2 exhibited excellent cycling stability in 10 catalytic cycle tests and was highly amenable to separation. This property effectively addresses the significant challenges associated with the practical application of nanocatalysts. Furthermore, density-functional theory (DFT) calculations have demonstrated that the GO-Ag nanocomposites exhibit the strongest adsorption capacity for 4-NP