Abstract

Toxic organic pollutants are significant and critical concerns in environmental and ecological processes. Consequently, the environmental remediation of such toxic organic contaminants is a significant concern. We present the fabrication of the highly stable and efficient catalyst for the aqueous phase catalytic reduction of organic pollutants utilizing CuCo bimetallic nanoparticles immobilized amine-functionalized mesoporous KIT-6 support (CuCo@KIT-6). The formation of CuCo bimetallic NPs into the KIT-6 support was shown by HR-TEM image with the particle size of 1.60 +/- 0.46 nm. CuCo@KIT-6 catalyst exhibited superior reactivity for 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) reduction within 12 min than the monometallic counterparts. The rate constant (kapp) of CuCo@KIT-6 (0.3938 min-1) was higher than the mono-metallic catalysts (Cu@KIT-6 (0.1438 min(-1)) and Co@KIT-6 (0.0052 min(-1))). CuCo@KIT-6 demonstrated good catalytic behaviors for the degradation of multiple pollutants including 2-nitrophenol (2-NP) (0.5395 min(-1)), 3-nitrophenol (3-NP) (0.8262 min(-1)), 2-nitroaniline (2-NA) (1.5051 min(-1)), 4-nitroaniline (4-NA) (0.7740 min-1), 4-(4-nitrophenyl)morpholine (4-NM) (0.6243 min(-1)), 2,4-dinitrophenol (2,4-DNP) (0.3297 min(-1)), 4-(2-fluoro-4-nitrophenyl) morpholine (4-FNM) (0.7411 min(-1)), rhodamine b (RhB) (1.7550 min(-1)), congo red (CR) (0.1900 min-1), methyl orange (MO) (1.3077 min(-1)), and eosin Y (EY) (0.5071 min(-1)). The CuCo@KIT-6 catalyst showed high efficiency for the simultaneous degradation of contaminants (4-NP + RhB + CR + MO + EY) in the complex environment. In addition, CuCo@KIT-6 catalyst demonstrated excellent stability with promising reusability. Thus, the CuCo@KIT-6 catalyst holds great promise for industrial wastewater treatment.