A magnetically recyclable Fe3O4@C@TNCuPc composite catalyst for chromogenic identification of phenolic pollutants

•The composite catalyst of Fe3O4@C@TNCuPcwasconstructed.•Chromogenic reaction can be accelerated facilely by Fe3O4@C@TNCuPc catalysts.•Fe3O4@C@TNCuPc can be easily recycled by a magnet.•The copper–oxygen active species mediated mechanism was proposed.

Metal phthalocyanine (MPc) complexes can accelerate the catalytic oxidation of phenol and chlorophenol pollutants and therefore attract great attention. Although many efforts have been made on improving the catalytic performance of MPc, most of them are difficult to be recycled and cause secondary pollution. In this work, for the first time we report a novel biomimetic phthalocyanine catalyst of Fe3O4@Carbon@Tetranitro copper phthalocyanine (Fe3O4@C@TNCuPc) could catalyze the chromogenic identification of phenol and chlorophenol compounds in the presence of 4-aminoantipyrine and BuOOH without light irradiation or heating. Significantly, the Fe3O4@C@TNCuPc catalyst could be magnetically recycled and show high activity after four successive cycles of catalysis. On the basis of the electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) test and active species trapping experiments, we propose that the oxidation of substrates was mediated by TNPcCuIIIO active species generated from the homolytic cleavage of the OO bond in TNPcCuIIOOBu.

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