Sustainable feasibility of waste printer ink to magnetically separable iron oxide–doped nanocarbons for styrene oxidation

Abstract A simpler cost-effective method for the isolation of magnetically separable ‘self-doped iron oxide nanocarbons’ (FeO-NC) from waste printer ink (used as a carbon source material which is available free of cost) is discussed here. The process involves carbonization of waste printer ink in a muffle furnace at ~600 °C to obtain FeO-NC. The as-prepared FeO-NC has been investigated as an efficient heterogeneous catalyst for the long-known important organic reaction involving transformation of styrene to benzaldehyde in a quantitative yield (~70%). Importantly, FeO-NC were magnetically separable along with good recyclability, which supports the sustainability of reported process.