Facile solvothermal preparation of Fe3O4–Ag nanocomposite with excellent catalytic performance

Functional nanocomposites demonstrate excellent comprehensive properties and outstanding characteristics for numerous applications. Magnetic nanocomposites are an important type of composite materials, due to their applications in optics, medicine and catalysis. In this report, a new Fe3O4-loaded silver (Fe3O4-Ag) nanocomposite has been successfully synthesized via a simple solvothermal method and in situ growth of silver nanowires. The silver nanowires were prepared via the reduction of silver vanadate with the addition of uniformly dispersed Fe3O4 nanoparticles. Structural and morphological characterizations of the obtained Fe3O4-Ag nanocomposite were carried out using many characterization methods. As a new composite catalyst, the synthesized magnetic Fe3O4-Ag nanocomposite displayed a high utilization rate of catalytically active sites in catalytic reaction medium and showed good separation and recovery using an external magnetic field. The facile preparation and good catalytic performance of this Fe3O4-Ag nanocomposite material demonstrate its potential applications in catalytic treatment and composite materials.