Copper/nickel-Decorated Olive Pit Biochar: One Pot Solid State Synthesis for Environmental Remediation

Developing micro- and nanomaterials for environmental pollution remediation is hot topic presently. Among the plethora of strategies, designing supported nanocatalysts for the degradation of pollutants witnessed constant renewal. In this context, we are addressing one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals by valorizing agrowaste as a source of biochar which serves as support for bimetallic nanocatalysts. Herein, Olive pit powder particles were impregnated with copper and nickel nitrates and pyrolyzed at 400 °C. The resulting material consists of bimetallic CuNi-decorated biochar. CuNi nanocatalysts were found to be as small as 10 nm and very well dispersed over biochar with zero valent copper and nickel and formation of copper-nickel solid solutions. The biochar@CuNi exhibited typical soft ferromagnet hysteresis loops with zero remanence and zero coercivity. The biochar@CuNi was found to be efficient catalyst of the reduction of methyl orange (MO) dye, taken as model pollutant.
To sum up, the one pot method devised in this work provided unique CuNi-decorated biochar and opens new horizons for the emerging topic of biochar-supported nanocatalysts.