"Highly recyclable and super-tough hydrogel mediated by dual-functional" by Yiying Yue, Xianhui Wang et al.

Faculty Publications

Title

Highly recyclable and super-tough hydrogel mediated by dual-functional TiO nanoparticles toward efficient photodegradation of organic water pollutants

Authors

Yiying Yue, College of Biology and the Environment, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, Jiangsu, China.
Xianhui Wang, College of Biology and the Environment, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, Jiangsu, China.
Qinglin Wu, School of Renewable Natural Resources, Louisiana State University Agricultural Center, Baton Rouge 70803, LA, USA.
Jingquan Han, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, Jiangsu, China. Electronic address: hjq@njfu.edu.cn.
Jianchun Jiang, College of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, Jiangsu, China; Institute of Chemical Industry of Forest Products, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Nanjing 210042, Jiangsu, China. Electronic address: bio-energy@163.com.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-22-2020

Abstract

A novel photocatalytic hydrogel was prepared by loading TiO nanoparticles (TiO NPs) onto the surface of 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl (TEMPO)-oxidized chitin nanofibers (TOCNs), which were further incorporated into the polyacrylamide (PAM) matrix. The resultant hydrogel exhibited a macro-porous structure with a low density (~1.45 g/cm) and high water content (~80%). The well-dispersed TiO NPs not only acted as a crosslinking agent for bridging the three-dimensional porous network structure, but also endowed the hydrogel with good catalytic activity. After the introduction of TiO accounting for 10 wt% of the hydrogel mass, the hydrogels showed compressive strength of 1.46 MPa at 70% strain, tensile stress of 316 kPa, tensile strain of 310%, toughness of 47.25 kJ/m and fatigue resistance. Compared with neat TOCN-PAM hydrogel, the uniaxial compressive and tensile strengths of the TiO-TOCN-PAM10 hydrogel increased 6.35-fold and 3.70-fold, respectively. Furthermore, the removal of methyl orange (MO) was attributed to the synergistic effect of the adsorption and photocatalytic degradation of the hydrogels. The hydrogels adsorbed up to 8.5% of MO after 150 min of adsorption and a photocatalytic degradation rate of 97.3% achieved after 90 min of UV irradiation at pH = 2. Especially, the TiO-TOCN-PAM10 hydrogel exhibited excellent recycling performance: its MO removal efficiency was around 96% even after 10 reuse cycles. The as-prepared hydrogels, with characteristics of excellent stretchability, photocatalytic activity and recyclability, are expected to be used in alleviating organic pollutants in practical wastewater treatments.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Journal of colloid and interface science

First Page

Last Page

112

Recommended Citation

Yue, Y., Wang, X., Wu, Q., Han, J., & Jiang, J. (2020). Highly recyclable and super-tough hydrogel mediated by dual-functional TiO nanoparticles toward efficient photodegradation of organic water pollutants. Journal of colloid and interface science, 564, 99-112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcis.2019.12.069

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