A facile method is presented for the immobilization of gold nanoparticles on polyethyleneimine functionalized magnetite. The catalyst was characterized by TEM, XRD, TGA, FT-IR, XPS and VSM. This catalyst afforded a fast conversion of the 4-nitrophenol to 4-aminophenol at the presence of NaBH4, and an excellent yield was still achieved after it was reused ten times. (C) 2012 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.