Sustainable CuFe bimetallic catalyst in carbon matrices for rapid pollutant degradation and scalable flow reactor applications

A noble-metal-free Cu/Fe@C catalyst was developed via carbonization of a bimetallic Cu/Fe–FDCA metal–organic framework (MOF), enabling ultrafast electronic tandem catalysis for the degradation of environmental pollutants within seconds. The synergistic electron transfer between Cu and Fe sites, evidenced by a 0.5 eV shift in Cu binding energy via XPS, resulted in exceptional catalytic kinetics. The catalyst efficiently reduced 12 nitroaromatic compounds to their corresponding amines within 20–180 s, including 4-nitrophenol (kapp = 4.93 min −1 ), and degraded methylene blue, Congo red, and complex dye mixtures in 15–30 s (k app up to 0.2443 s −1 ). The mesoporous carbon matrix (119 m 2 ·g −1 , I D /I G  = 0.68) prevented nanoparticle aggregation, while alginate microencapsulation enabled magnetic recovery and sustained over 98 % efficiency during 1400 min of continuous-flow operation, with 94.8 % activity retention after four cycles. This work presents a scalable, sustainable catalyst platform for the production of amine-based aromatic pharmaceuticals and advanced water remediation.