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RSC Advances
the AgW5 catalyst and recovered catalyst aer 15 min of reac-
tion (Fig. S14†). The as-synthesized AgW5 catalyst shows two
peaks at 31.58 eV and 33.68 eV for W 4f7/2 and W 4f5/2, respec-
tively, owing to spin–orbit splitting. The recovered catalyst
shows four peaks in the binding energy range 30–40 eV.
Deconvolution results in two peaks in the higher energy region,
35.62 and 37.63 eV, assigned to W6+ and lower energy peaks at
31.66 and 33.67 eV corresponding to W(0).17a,b So during the
reduction process, W(0) might be oxidised to the W6+ state and
then reduced back to W(0) by hydrazine.
An optimization study (ESI,† Table 1.1) revealed that only 5
mol% of the catalyst is sufficient for it to perform its activity and
commonly used hydrazine was found to be a potential candi-
date for catalyst regeneration. Under the developed conditions,
different varieties of nitro compounds were screened to illus-
trate the robustness and generalization of the procedure.
Aromatic ring-possessing electron donating (entries 1 and 7,
Table 1) and electron withdrawing substituents (entries 6, 8 and
9, Table 1), heterocyclic ring (entry 3), and aliphatic analogues
(entries 2, 4 and 5) are well tolerated for the formation of
valuable amino synthons (2a–j, Table 1). All of the structures
were conrmed by spectroscopic analyses (ESI†) and compared
with the literature. A surprising result was obtained for 1,2-
dinitrobenzene (entry 6) as both of the nitro groups were
reduced to o-phenylenediamine (2f) very easily. Thus, the
developed strategy demonstrates a simple, non-hazardous
reduction technique with fast reaction convergence.
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In Summary, we have successfully synthesized free-standing
W(0) NCs by a thermal decomposition process and have fabri-
cated bimetallic Ag–W heterostructures using Ag seeds with
tunable SPR features. The Ag–W nanonet structure shows effi-
cient reductive photocatalytic activity. Highly oxophilic W in the
Ag–W heterostructure acts as a catalytic site as evidenced from
the XPS study. The design of heterostructures comprising metal
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the photocatalytic process.
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Acknowledgements
S. G. and M. S. acknowledge CSIR, India for providing the
fellowship (SRF and JRF) during the tenure of the work.
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