Chitosan-titanium oxide fibers supported zero-valent nanoparticles: Highly efficient and easily retrievable catalyst for the removal of organic pollutants

Abstract

Abstract Different chitosan-titanium oxide (CS-TiO 2 -x, with x = TiO 2 loadings of 1, 5, 10,15 and 20 wt%) nanocomposite fibers were prepared and kept separately in each salt solution of CuSO 4 , CoNO 3 , AgNO 3 and NiSO 4 to adsorb Cu 2+ , Co 2+ , Ag + , and Ni + ions, respectively. The metal ions loaded onto CS-TiO 2 fibers were reduced to their respective zero-valent metal nanoparticles (ZV-MNPs) like Cu 0 , Co 0 , Ag 0 and Ni 0 by treating with NaBH 4 . The CS-TiO 2 fibers templated with various ZV-MNPs were characterized and investigated for their catalytic efficiency. Among all prepared ZV-MNPs, Cu 0 nanoparticles templated on CS-TiO 2 -15 fibers exhibited high catalytic efficiency for the reduction of dyes (methyl orange (MO), congo red (CR), methylene blue (MB) and acridine orange (AO)) and nitrophenols (4-nitrohphenol (4-NP), 2-nitrophenol (2-NP), 3-nitrophenol (3-NP) and 2,6-dinitrophenol (2,6-DNP)). Besides the good catalytic activities of Cu/CS-TiO 2 -15 fibers, it could be easily recovered by simply pulling the fiber from the reaction medium.