Green synthesis and surface decoration of silver nanoparticles onto δ-FeOOH-Polymeric nanocomposite as efficient nanocatalyst for dyes degradation

Abstract

In the present work, a green method has been developed to fabricate a novel nanocatalyst by the coupling of silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) onto δ-FeOOH and urea-formaldehyde polymer (PUF) using microwave irradiation heating process for the production AgNPs@δ-FeOOH/PUF. Several FT-IR functional groups as CO, CN, CN, CO and Fe-O were characterized in the assembled AgNPs@δ-FeOOH/PUF. The XRD diffraction peaks of silver nanparicles are well-matched to the cubic crystal structure of AgNPs to refer to a cubic crystal structure of AgNPs. The XPS analysis of AgNPs(0.5 wt %)@δ-FeOOH/PUF nanocatalyst confirmed the presence of Ag, N, O, C and Fe elements. The TEM image and histogram for particle size distribution of AgNPs@δ-FeOOH/PUF nanocatalyst showed the appearance of spherical particles on the surface of PUF with average size 10 nm. Moreover, AgNPs(0.5 %wt)@δ-FeOOH/PUF nanocatalyst exhibited brilliant efficiency in the catalytic hydrogenation of two selected azo dyes, methyl orange (MO) and congo red (CR) with high TOF in different loading contents of AgNPs/CP as 0.818 and 0.436 s−1, respectively. In addition, AgNPs@δ-FeOOH/PUF nanocatalyst showed good reusability as well as highly activity for reduction conversion of MO and CR into 100 to 89 %, respectively in few minutes after five cycles. The AgNPs@δ-FeOOH/PUF nanocatalyst with high TOF may be potential candidate as a workable and efficient nanocatalyst in treatment of environmental samples such as sea water (degradation efficiency percent is 80.62 % for MO and 81.51 % for CR).