Abstract
Water pollution is considered a perilous issue that requires an immediate solution. This is largely because of the strong correlation between the global population increase and the amount of waste produced (most notably food waste). This project prompts the conversion of food waste into useful materials that can be used with sodium alginate as a catalytic support for metal nanoparticles. Sodium alginate/banana peel (Alg/BP) beads were prepared simply using an eco-friendly method. The prepared materials were modified using nanostructured materials to enhance their characteristics. Alg/BP beads were employed as adsorbents for metals that were then treated with sodium borohydride to produce MNPs@Alg/BP. Different MNPs@Alg/BP (MNPs = Ag, Ni, Co, Fe, and Cu) were used as catalysts for reducing 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) by NaBH4 to evaluate each catalyst performance in a model reaction. The results exhibited that Cu@Alg/BP was most efficient toward complete transformation of 4-NP. Therefore, Cu@Alg/BP was also used as a catalyst for the reduction of potassium ferricyanide, congo red, methyl orange (MO), and methylene blue. It was found that Cu@Alg/BP beads catalytically reduced up to 95–99% of above pollutants within a few minutes. Cu@Alg/BP beads were more selective in reducing MO among the pollutants. The catalytic activity of Cu@Alg/BP was examined by evaluating the impact of numerous parameters on MO reduction. The results are expected to provide a new strategy for the removal of inorganic and organic water contaminants based on efficient and low-cost catalysts.
Highlights
For last few decades, drinking water has been in high demand because of the rapid increase in population growth
The carboxyl group of sodium alginate and Al3+ cations made it possible to cross-link with one another and convert the Banana peels (BP) dispersed Alg solution into a gel that settled in AlCl3 aqueous solution in the form of beads
A total of 0.2 g of alginate/banana peel (Alg/BP) beads were added to the metal salt solution (AgNO3, NiSO4 ·7H2 O, Co(NO3 )2 ·6H2 O, FeCl3, CuSO4 ·5H2 O) and kept overnight for adsorption of convert the BP dispersed Alg solution into a gel that settled in AlCl3 aqueous solution in the form of beads
Summary
For last few decades, drinking water has been in high demand because of the rapid increase in population growth. Various approaches have been employed to reduce or eliminate harmful pollutants from aquatic solutions such as solvent extraction, membrane and magnetic separation, oxidation, reduction, precipitation, photochemical reactions, bacterial treatment, irradiation by nuclear radiation, ion exchange, and adsorption [3] Some of these developed methods have their own limitations such as high operational costs and they may require highly skilled operators. In order to overcome these issues, the mechanical strength could be enhanced by integrating interactable polymers or nanomaterials [23,24] In this current study, a composite of alginate polymer with banana peels (Alg/BP) as a catalytic support for different metal nanoparticles (Cu, Ag, Ni, Co, and Fe) was successfully prepared and utilized as catalysts for the reduction reaction of some environmental pollutants, 4-NP, K3 [Fe(CN)6 ] and three organic dyes (MO, MB, and CR), in the presence of a reducing agent (NaBH4 )
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