Nanoarchitectured Cu based catalysts supported on alginate/glycyl leucine hybrid beads for tainted water treatment

Abstract

Water pollution reached worrying point due to different dye pollutants which demands an instant solution. One of the best ways to manage water pollutants is their reduction and decolorization to less-toxic and useful compounds. However, reduction process requires an effective, stable, and recyclable catalyst to reduce such pollutants more effectively. Metal nanoparticles (M0) are highly effective catalysts but separation of nanoparticles after reaction is difficult and requires a high-speed centrifugation. If loaded on polymer-beads, they can be easily separated from the reaction-mixture. Hearin, alginate/glycyl leucine (AGL) hybrid-beads were prepared, and copper nanoparticles (Cu0) were grown on it by simple process. M0/AGL bead catalysts were tested toward reducing various toxic compounds. Among all developed composite-beads, the catalytic performance of Cu0/AGL was highest in terms of reduction kinetics. After initial screening for different pollutants, Cu0/AGL was much more effective for MO reduction, thus, all optimized different parameters i.e., catalyst dosage, stability, amount of reducing-agent and recyclability were experimentally determined. The Cu0/AGL showed high-rate constants (kapp) of 0.7566 and 2.9506 min−1 depending on beads content. The reusability of the Cu0/AGL catalysts up to the 7th cycle has been checked. With the use of AGL as support for the Cu nanoparticles, not only the catalytic activity was retained for longer times during reusability, but it helped in their easy separation.