Controllable morphology and highly efficient catalytic performances of Pd–Cu bimetallic nanomaterials prepared via seed-mediated co-reduction synthesis

[Display omitted] •Develop new Pd-Cu bimetallic structure nanomaterials.•Controllable morphology prepared in different cationic surfactants.•Highly efficient catalytic reduction of nitro compounds for wastewater treatment.•Significant potentials in bimetallic catalytic composite nanomaterials design. A seed-mediated co-reduction (SMCR) method that is simple to operate and produces heterogeneous components by the simultaneous co-reduction strategy to grow crystal was used to prepare a bimetallic nanomaterial, composed of two components of uniform metal elements. In this work, three different cationic surfactants were studied to control the morphology of bimetallic compound materials: cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), cetyltrimethylammonium chloride (CTAC), and cetylpyridinium bromide (C16Py). Three mature and stable palladium crystal particles and the same number of Pd–Cu bimetallic nanomaterials (BNMs) products were obtained. The system of Pd and Cu bimetallic components, which has a large lattice mismatch, was grown uniformly by atomic layer-by-layer deposition under the SMCR method. The experimental results of BNMs for two nitro compounds (2-NA and 4-NP) were obtained by UV–vis spectral characterization. The prepared BNMs showed excellent catalytic ability in the reduction reaction and completed the catalytic reaction within 93 s. After eight consecutive catalytic cycles, the conversion of the catalytic reaction reached more than 90%. A set of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) experiments were also used to test the Raman enhancement properties of these BNMs, demonstrating a good SERS enhancement effect and good uniformity. These research results provide a new research topic for the exploration of morphology-controlled bimetal nanomaterials.