Sustainable Bioengineering of Gold Structured Wide-Area Supported Catalysts for Hand-Recyclable Ultra-Efficient Heterogeneous Catalysis

Metal nanoparticles grafted within inert and porous wide-area supports are emerging as recyclable, sustainable catalysts for modern industry applications. Here, we develop gold nanoparticle-anchored supported catalysts by utilizing the natural metal binding and reductive potential of natural eggshell. Variable hand-recyclable wide-area catalysts between ~(80±7) and (0.5±0.1) cm2 are generated by varying the support dimensions. The catalyst possesses high-porosity (17.1 Å) and stability against high-temperatures (300°C), polar and non-polar solvents, electrolytes, acids and bases, facilitating compatible ultra-efficient catalysis. As validated by large-volume (2.8 liters) sewage-dye detoxification, gram-scale hydrogenation of nitroarenes and synthesis of propargylamine. Moreover, persistent-recyclability, monitoring of reaction kinetics and product intermediates are possible due to retrievability and interchangeability of the catalyst. Finally, the bio-nature of support permits ~76.9% recovery of noble gold simply by immersing in royal solution. Our naturally-created, low-cost, scalable, hand-recyclable and resilient supported mega-catalyst dwarfs most challenges for large-scale metal-based heterogeneous catalysis.