Facile synthesis of porous silver monoliths with excellent catalytic activity

•Specific porous silver monoliths were prepared via thermal-reduction process.•The porous Ag monoliths display enhanced catalytic activity and durability over reduction of P-nitrophenol.•The present synthetic approach is facile, environmentally benign, and amenable to scale-up process.

In this study, novel porous silver (Ag) monoliths have been successfully prepared via a facile process by combining an aging treatment with a thermal-induced reduction reaction. The obtained Ag samples display distinct morphologies via simply adjusting reaction conditions such as aging temperature and precursor’s concentrations. More interestingly, the as-made porous Ag samples exhibit superior catalytic activity and durability in the catalysis over reduction of P-nitrophenol (4-NP). Remarkably, the synergistic effects of stabilizing and oxidative etching agents should be responsible for the fabrication of hierarchical metallic monoliths, which highlight significant advantages over the existing techniques given that the present method is facile, inexpensive, environmentally benign, and amenable to scale-up process.

Graphical abstractA kind of novel porous Ag monoliths (include spherical and hierarchical) was prepared via direct aging reaction followed by a facile thermal-induced reduction process. The as-made porous Ag monoliths exhibit superior activity and durability in the catalysis over reduction of P-nitrophenol (4-NP).Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide