Gamma-ray-irradiated construction of CuCo-based nanocomposites for attractive hydrogen production and tandem hydrogenation

Nitroarenes are important chemicals but display toxity to environment and organisms. In the present work, non-precious bicomponent CuCo-based nanocomposites (CuCo₂O₄/CuO) prepared with the aid of gamma(γ)-ray-irradiation were utilized for hydrogen production from ammonia borane (AB) hydrolysis and tandem hydrogenation of nitroarenes. The γ-ray-irradiation remarkably boosted the catalytic performance for the AB dehydrogenation and the hydrogenation of nitroarenes. Hydrogen generation rate (HGR) for the CuCo₂O₄/CuO catalyst reached 856.3 mL min⁻¹·g_cat⁻¹, which was approximately two-fold than that of the catalyst prepared by conventional method (only 397.1 mL min⁻¹·g_cat⁻¹). Meanwhile, this irradiation-induced catalyst also showed excellent performance for the hydrogenation of screened nitroarenes with 100% yield of the corresponding amines. The CuCo₂O₄/CuO catalyst exhibited high reusability with ∼90% remained activity of the initial one after six runs. The bicomponent CuCo₂O₄/CuO exhibited positive hydrogen spillover and synergistic effects contributing to the considerable activity improvement, which is beneficial to the detoxication, conversion and utilization of poison nitroarenes.