The objective of the presented research is the development of a method to prepare hybrid materials composed of ruthenium nanoparticles (Ru-NPs) and polyaniline nanofibers (PANI-NFs). The rapid microwave synthesis of Ru-NPs with an appropriate reducing agent has been reported in the literature. By doing this in the presence of pre-formed PANI-NFs, it is hoped that the NPs' aggregation can be avoided by dispersing them in a high surface area polymer scaffold. We are currently investigating the effects of different reducing agents on the formation of these composites and are characterizing them via UV-VIS, FTIR, SEM, and EDS. Preliminary results indicate that NaBH<sub>4</sub> successfully reduces Ru<sup>+3</sup> to Ru, but also induces significant morphological and spectral changes in PANI. In contrast, the polymer appears to be unchanged when glucose is used as the reducing agent, suggesting that it may be a better choice for this system. The ultimate goal is to optimize the preparation conditions so that we may test the catalytic activity of these materials toward the degradation of the toxic azo dye congo red, a model compound that is representative of a variety of industrial pollutants.

Microwave synthesis of ruthenium nanoparticles in the presence of polyaniline nanofibers

256th National Meeting (2018)

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