This study presents a simple, scalable approach to manufacturing novel catalytic substrates that can be used to fabricate advanced functional materials from natural biopolymers. Motivated to develop novel systems from sustainable materials, commercially available yarns were selected as the substrate to design catalytic systems for a water treatment application. First, linen and bamboo yarn are shown to be viable scaffolds for growing palladium and copper:palladium bimetallic nanoparticles. After grinding the yarns to powder, the metallic nanoparticles were nucleated within the accessed cellulose hierarchical microstructure via incipient wetness and hydrogen gas reduction. For each system, the optimal metal ratio was determined by assessing the substrate’s ability to reduce nitrite or nitrate in batch reactor water tests. After determining the optimized bimetallic system, the process was scaled up 20-fold, and the catalyst was used as a raw material to manufacture membrane systems for reduction of nitrate. Material characterization of relevant substrates includes ICP-MS, XPS, SEM, and TEM. With growing interest in developing novel systems from sustainable, renewable materials, and with the emergence of new fiber processing techniques such as natural fiber welding, this work shows great potential for future development of catalytic systems for a variety of applications.

Synthesis and characterization of bimetallic nanoparticle catalysts on sustainable, biopolymer substrates for reduction of nitrate and nitrite in aqueous solution

251st National Meeting (2016)

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