Electrochemical hydrogen storage, photocatalytical and antibacterial activity of Fe[sbnd]Ag bimetallic nanoparticles supported on TiO2 nanowires

Abstract

In this work, the FeAg bimetallic nanoparticles supported on TiO2 nanowires (NWs) were synthesized by a facile chemical deposition method. This material subsequently was applied for electrochemical hydrogen storage, photocatalytic degradation of a binary solution of Auramine-O (AO) and Methylene blue (MB) dyes and photocatalytic hydrogen production.The electrochemical hydrogen storage measurements reveal that FeAg/TiO2 nanowires have higher hydrogen storage capacity, better cycle stability and higher rate discharge ability than the FeAg/TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs). Its maximum discharge capacity was 4.29 wt% and remained 3.14 wt% after 25 cycles, and the capacity retention rate was 68% at a high rate current density of 6.2 Ag-1. Moreover, the FeAg/TiO2 NWs supply more significant enhancement in the degradation of a binary solution of AO and MB than FeAg/TiO2 NPs. The photodegradation rate was 55.99% for FeAg/TiO2 NWs at 7 min and 29% for FeAg/TiO2 NPs at 52 min. Furthermore, photocatalytic hydrogen production rates on the as-prepared products are 1269 and 783 μmol h−1 for NWs and NPs, respectively. This significant electrochemical hydrogen storage and excellent photocatalytic performance can be attributed to the increased specific surface area in its one dimension (1D) structure.It was noteworthy that antibacterial activity experiments illustrated the improved antibacterial activity of FeAg/TiO2 NPs in comparison to FeAg/TiO2 NWs because the one-dimensional structure of TiO2 nanowires makes it difficult to enter the bacterial membrane.