Herein, we report an efficient, magnetically recoverable and recyclable nanocatalyst to drive a reduction reaction under mild reaction conditions. Nickel ferrite (NiFe 2 O 4) and 20% copper substituted nickel ferrite (Ni 0.8 Cu 0.2 Fe 2 O 4) nanocatalysts were synthesized using a facile glycine-nitrate autocombustion route and employed as catalysts to assess the reduction of 4-nitrophenol in aqueous medium. Phase purity, structural aspects, morphological features and magnetic characteristrics of as-synthesized ferrite powders were carried out using Xray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). Elemental compositions of the prepared materials were investigated using EDX analysis. Reduction of 4nitrophenol to 4-aminophenol using NaBH 4 as the reducing agent with the nanocatalyst was monitered using a UV-Visible spectrophotometry. The results indicate that the Ni 0.8 Cu 0.2 Fe 2 O 4 demonstrated a better catalytic activity with nearly 99% conversion against NiFe 2 O 4 , which showed almost negligible activity over a long period of time. For the first catalytic reduction cycle, time taken by the Ni 0.8 Cu 0.2 Fe 2 O 4 was less than 2 min. However, the reduction time increased progressively as number of cycles increased. Ni 0.8 Cu 0.2 Fe 2 O 4 also displayed a superior catalytic performance over 10 cycles, without a significant drop in its activity. The superior catalytic performance of Ni 0.8 Cu 0.2 Fe 2 O 4 is likely to be due the surface contribution of smaller particles and the presence of Cu 2+ at the octahedral site of the spinel ferrite.

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Herein, we report synthesis of two new copper metal organic frameworks. The organic linkers were terephthalic acid with 6-Dihydroimidazo[2,1-b]thiazole-2-carbaldehyde and terephthalic acid with 3-benzothiazol-2-yl-malonaldehyde used in the copper nano metal organic framework (MOF). Both the Cu-MOF’s were characterized by XRD, UV-vis spectroscopy and FTIR. XRD crystallographic studies revealed the presence of copper metal at 2θ at 18.4°. Tauc plots were simulated to calculate the band gap of both Cu-MOF’s and result indicated the band gap energy of Cu-MOF 1 at 3.31 eV and for Cu-MOF 2 was at 3.57 eV. The UV-Visible absorption studies indicated two bands for Cu-MOF 1 and Cu-MOF 2 at 326 nm. However, the second band in Cu MOF 1 at 509 nm was slightly shifted to higher wavelength at 516 nm in Cu-MOF 2 due to the extension of π-π* transition. The photoluminescent properties of both Cu-MOF’s indicated a strong band at 505 nm. Thus, the optical properties of both the Cu-MOF’s infers that these can be a promising semiconductor material for various electronic applications.

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