One-Pot Synthesis of Magnetic Core-Shell Fe3O4@C Nanospheres with Pt Nanoparticle Immobilization for Catalytic Hydrogenation of Nitroarenes

Abstract

Magnetic materials with intriguing structural and functional modifications demonstrate broad application potential in various fields, including drug delivery, absorption, extraction, separation, and catalysis. In particular, the catalytic hydrogenation of functionalized organic nitro compounds represents a significant research focus in contemporary catalysis studies. A facile synthesis of Fe3O4@C–Pt core-shell nanocatalysts was developed in this work through a sequential process involving (1) one-pot hydrothermal synthesis followed by N2-annealing to obtain the Fe3O4@C core and (2) subsequent solvothermal deposition of platinum nanoparticles. Comprehensive characterization was performed using FT-IR, XRD, Raman spectroscopy, TEM, XPS, BET surface area analysis, TGA, and VSM techniques. The resulting magnetic nanocatalysts exhibited uniformly dispersed Pt nanoparticles and demonstrated exceptional catalytic performance in nitroarene hydrogenation reactions. Remarkably, the system showed excellent functional group tolerance across all 20 substituted nitroarenes, consistently yielding corresponding aromatic amine products with >93% conversion efficiency. Furthermore, the magnetic responsiveness of Fe3O4@C–Pt enabled convenient catalyst recovery through simple magnetic separation, with maintained catalytic activity over 10 consecutive reuse cycles without significant performance degradation.