Waste Based Solutions for Preventing Water Pollution by Nitroarenes

A novel method for decontamination by nitroarenes was proposed: nitroarenes were converted into less toxic anilines using a new catalyst synthetized starting from waste steel slags (SS) coming from local steel factories. The new catalyst was synthetized by impregnating SS with iron(II) and iron(III) salts affording Fe-cat/SS, which was characterized by different analytical techniques, such as energy dispersive x-ray fluorescence (ED-XRF) spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analyses (TGA), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Fe-cat/SS resulted active and selective in the reduction of nitrobenzene to aniline by using hydrazine hydrate as the reductant. Recyclability studies demonstrated that Fe-cat/SS could be recycled at least for eight subsequent runs without loss of activity and selectivity. Thus, the proposed catalytic system is a virtuous example of conversion of waste into valuable materials, that can be used to prevent water contamination by nitroarenes.