Synthesis of Cu-Fe3O4@graphene composite: A magnetically separable and efficient catalyst for the reduction of 4-nitrophenol

• The Cu-Fe3O4@GE composite was prepared by one-step solvent–thermal method.
• The Cu-Fe3O4@GE composite exhibited the highest catalytic activity with excellent stability.
• The Cu-Fe3O4@GE composite was magnetically separable.

In this work, the Cu-Fe3O4@GE composite was prepared easily by a one-step solvent–thermal method, which achieved the formation of Cu nanoparticles (Cu NPs), Fe3O4 nanoparticles (Fe3O4 NPs) and reduction of GO simultaneously. The morphology and structure of the composite was fully characterized by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transformed infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The time-dependent adsorption spectra of the reaction mixture was measured by UV–vis absorption spectroscopy. The results demonstrated that the Cu NPs and Fe3O4 NPs were densely and evenly deposited on the graphene (GE) sheets. It was found that the Cu-Fe3O4@GE composite exhibited high catalytic activities on the reduction of p-nitrophenol to p-aminophenol. Furthermore, the composite catalyst can be easily recovered due to its magnetic separability and high stability.

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