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https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/jcsc/129/01/0081-0093

Nanocomposite; Gold nanoparticles; Au/CeO& #8322; -TiO& #8322; ; Organic dye; Catalytic reduction; Nanohybrid.

Highly improved catalytic reductive degradation of different organic dyes, in the presence of excess NaBH₄ over Au/CeO₂-TiO₂ nano-hybrid as the catalyst is reported in this study. CeO₂-TiO₂ nanocomposite was prepared by a facile co-precipitation method using ultra-high dilute aqueous solutions. Small amount of Au (only 1 wt%) was loaded onto the nanocomposite material by deposition-precipitation with urea (DPU) method to fabricate the ternary Au/CeO₂-TiO₂ nano-hybrid. The catalysts were characterized by the representative techniques like XRD, BET surface area, ICP-AES, UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, TEM and XPS. The Au/CeO₂-TiO₂ nano-hybrid along with NaBH₄ exhibited remarkable catalytic activities towards all the probed dyes, namely Methylene Blue, Methyl Orange, Congo Red, Rhodamine B and Malachite Green, with a degradation efficiency of ~100% in a short reaction time. The degradation reaction followed pseudo-first-order kinetics with respect to the concentration of the dye. Different parameters that affect the rate of the reaction are discussed. A plausible mechanism for methylene blue degradation has also been proposed.

PRANJAL SAIKIA¹ ABU T MIAH¹ PARTHA P DAS²

1. Department of Applied Sciences (Chemical Science Division), GUIST, Gauhati University, Guwahati 781 014, Assam, India
2. Department of Physics, NIT Karnataka, Surathkal, Mangalore 575 025, Karnataka, India

Published

5 January 2017

Manuscript received

27 August 2016

Manuscript revised

1 November 2016

Accepted

1 November 2016

• JCSC-129-1_81-93.docx