Production of palladium nanocatalyst supported on modified gum arabic and investigation of its potential against treatment of environmental contaminants.

Removal of organic pollutants such as aromatic nitro compounds and dyes from wastewaters is very significant for environment, and the best strategy is their reduction/degradation in the presence of a metal catalyst. In this study, a new palladium nanocatalyst (GA-Sch-Pd) was prepared derived from modified gum arabic and characterized by FT-IR, TGA, FE-SEM, EDS, TEM, and XRD analyses. Then, the catalytic potential of GA-Sch-Pd nanocatalyst was tested in the catalytic reductions of different organic pollutants such as o-nitroaniline (o-NA), p-nitrophenol (p-NP), p-nitro-o-phenylenediamine (p-NPDA), p-nitroaniline (p-NA), congo red (CR), methylene blue (MB), and methyl orange (MO) by using NaBH4 in water. These tests showed GA-Sch-Pd nanocatalyst had high activity against reduction of nitroarenes and organic dyes at very short reaction durations. Moreover, GA-Sch-Pd nanocatalyst was easily separated and reused for several times. This study shows that GA-Sch-Pd nanocatalyst has a high potential for remediation of environmental pollutants in wastewaters.