Hierarchical porous carbon material restricted Au catalyst for highly catalytic reduction of nitroaromatics

[Display omitted] •Four kinds of porous carbon supported Au catalysts were compared for nitroaromatics reduction.•Hierarchical porous CB restricted Au catalyst (Au/CB) showed the highest catalytic activity.•The abundant hierarchical pore structure of CB contributed to improving the catalytic activity.•Au/CB catalyst still retained satisfying stability and activity after ten cycles.•AuNPs in Au/CB shows small size (2.5 nm) and high dispersion (>40%). In this study, four kinds of porous carbon materials were used as supports to anchor gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) for catalytic reduction of nitroaromatics and 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) was employed as a model material. Results identified that carbon black (CB) restricted-Au catalyst (Au/CB) provided large specific surface area, small AuNPs size, and low cost, which showed highly catalytic activity for 4-NP reduction. Besides, with the increase of Au loadings, the catalytic activity of Au/CB was enhanced and the 1.2 wt% of Au loading exhibited the best catalytic activity with the high rate of 0.8302 min−1 and the turnover frequency of 492.50 h−1. Universality and real water application demonstrated that the as-prepared Au/CB catalyst was promising candidate for other phenols and azo dyes reduction and had great potential for practical application. Furthermore, after ten cycles, Au/CB still retained satisfying stability and activity. These results suggested that the larger specific surface area and smaller particle size attributing to the porosity of CB were conducive to improving the catalytic activity of Au catalysts. This design shows high potential of hierarchical porous carbon materials for highly catalytic reaction in many fields, especially the water purification.