Development and application of engineered nanomaterials to a variety of industrial and medical applications have progressed rapidly. They are predominantly desirable for their catalytic properties due to their high surface area-to-volume ratio. Bimetallic nanoparticles are of greater interest compared to monometallic nanoparticles as the two constituting metals enable a charge transfer effect to occur, thus greatly improving the catalytic property. Incorporating nanoparticles into another nanomaterial creates a nanocomposite that exhibits novel and better properties. In this study, we developed nanocomposite mats that comprise of hydrogel nanofibers of polyelectrolytes poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) and poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH), loaded with metal nanoparticles. The PAA-PAH nanofibers are fabricated by the electrospinning technique, and subsequently immersed into a metal salt solution. The metal ions within the fibers are then chemically reduced to form metal nanoparticles inside and on the surface of the nanofibers. Studies using two organic dyes, Congo Red (CR) and Methylene Blue (MB), and a reducing agent were conducted to observe the catalytic reduction of the dyes by the nanocomposites. The proposed fabrication process is advantageous in terms of simplicity, controllability and versatility.

Nanocomposites of electrospun polyelectrolyte hydrogel nanofibers and loaded metal nanoparticles for catalytic reduction of organic dyes

2019 Spring National Meeting

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