Abstract
A stable and high-efficiency bamboo-inspired catalytic capillary microreactor (CMR) decorated with Ag nano-particles (NPs) is skillfully designed for the continuous-flow reduction of nitroaromatics. By a novel continuous-flow method, Ag NPs are mainly dispersed around the long microchannels uniformly and firmly in bamboo vascular bundle. The bioinspired CMR achieves a continuously effective fluid flow while maintaining the high reactivity of Ag catalyst in the reduction of four nitroaromatics and shows good long-term stability where the catalytic performance remained at 90% within 11 h of five cycles. The detection of H* radical adducts indicated that Ag NPs adsorb the BH4~- ions to form the Ag-H species. The exceptional pore channel of CMR with a large surface area provides active sites readily accessible and facilitates H* radicals and electrons transfer to sinafi-cantly enhance nitroaromatic reduction. This sustainable bamboo-inspired design can greatly impel the future development of renewable catalysis system for wider applications.
NSTL