Silver nanoparticles supported on DABCO-based ionic liquid-functionalized magnetic polystyrene for the efficient reduction of 4-nitrophenol

The efficient conversion of nitrobenzene to aminophenols, typically achieved with metal catalysts or metal oxides, provides significant environmental benefits. In this study, a novel nanocatalyst was synthesized by immobilizing silver metal on DABCO-based ionic liquids supported on magnetic polystyrene. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by XRD, TGA, EDS & EDS mapping, FT-IR, and ICP and subsequently evaluated as solid-phase catalysts for the reduction of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) with excess NaBH 4 using UV-vis spectroscopy, which maintained good catalytic activity after six recycling cycles. The synthesized nanocatalyst was cost-effective and demonstrated excellent efficiency (⁓80% conversion) within 6 min, 15 mg of nanocatalyst, 25 mL of NaBH 4 (2.5 mM), as well as straightforward separation during the reduction process. Additionally, kinetic analysis shows that the reduction of 4-NP follows a pseudo-first-order model with K app = 0.20 min − 1 .