Conversion of chicken feather waste to N-doped carbon nanotubes for the catalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol.

Poultry feather is renewable, inexpensive and abundantly available. It holds great business potentials if poultry feather can be converted into valuable functional materials. Herein, we describe a strategy for the catalytic conversion of chicken feather waste to Ni3S2-carbon coaxial nanofibers (Ni3S2@C) which can be further converted to nitrogen doped carbon nanotubes (N-CNTs). Both Ni3S2@C and N-CNTs exhibit high catalytic activity and good reusability in the reduction of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) to 4-aminophenol (4-AP) by NaBH4 with a first-order rate constant (k) of 0.9 × 10(-3) s(-1) and 2.1 × 10(-3) s(-1), respectively. The catalytic activity of N-CNTs is better than that of N-doped graphene and comparable to commonly used noble metal catalysts. The N content in N-CNTs reaches as high as 6.43%, which is responsible for the excellent catalytic performance. This strategy provides an efficient and low-cost method for the comprehensive utilization of chicken feathers. Moreover, this study provides a new direction for the application of N-CNTs.