Polymer supported copper complexes/nanoparticles for treatment of environmental contaminants

Abstract Environmental remediation means removing hazardous pollutants and toxic contaminants from various environmental media. Development of effective, sustainable, low cost heterogeneous catalysts for the treatment of organic/inorganic contaminants is highly desirable and is still a main challenge. Today, the development and use of new and low-cost routes for catalytic reduction, degradation, adsorptive removal, and decomposition of pollutants from wastewater and the environment have become an urgent global issue. In recent years, polymer supported Cu nanoparticles (NPs)/complexes have been used as suitable catalysts for the degradation, decomposition, and reduction reactions due to their properties such as high surface area, thermal stability, and mechanical strength. This review summarizes the literature reports from 2008 and recent advances in the polymer supported copper NPs/complexes for the environmental remediation processes such as (photo)degradation of wastewater contaminants and organic dyes, reduction of toxic nitro contaminants such as 4- and 2-nitrophenol (4-NP and 2-NP), decomposition of H2O2, dehalogenation of aromatic chloride, and CO oxidation. Polymers are more favorable in the fabrication of heterogeneous catalysts compared to conventional catalysts due to their capability of increasing degradation, decomposition or reduction rate of organic and inorganic pollutants. The use of polymer supported Cu NPs/complexes offers several merits such as straightforward preparation, easy work-up, high catalytic performance, and reusability.