Facile solvothermal preparation of Fe 3 O 4 -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 Fe 3 O 4 -loaded silver (Fe 3 O 4 -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 Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles. Structural and morphological characterizations of the obtained Fe 3 O 4 -Ag nanocomposite were carried out using many characterization methods. As a new composite catalyst, the synthesized magnetic Fe 3 O 4 -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 Fe 3 O 4 -Ag nanocomposite material demonstrate its potential applications in catalytic treatment and composite materials.