Inducing Silver Nanoparticles on Supramolecular Functionalized Boron Nitride Nanosheets for Photocatalytic Removal of Reactive Blue Dyes

Abstract

A new hybrid nanomaterial has been developed by inducing catalytic silver nanoparticle on supramolecular BN nanosheets using supramolecular polymer as hybrid coordinator for photocatalytic removal of reactive blue dye (RB 221) from aqueous solution. In this study, adenine-bifunctionalized polypropylene glycol diacrylate (APPG) polymer was used for exfoliation and modification of BNNSs to decorate Ag nanoparticles that are prepared by sonication-assisted liquid phase exfoliation techniques. The synthesized materials are systematically characterized by various techniques such as FT-IR, UV-visible spectroscopy, Raman, FE-SEM, and HR-TEM. The layered structure of supramolecular polymer was observed over the exfoliated few layered BNNSs (2.0 to 3.5 nm). HR-TEM show that the silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) were successfully decorated on supramolecular functionalized BN nanosheets. The significance of functionalization is that the adenine moieties induce the high amount of Ag NPs through Ag/adenine moiety coordination, thereby increasing the effectiveness of catalyst towards removal of RB 221 dye. The RB 221 dye removal efficiency of new synthesized nanomaterials such as BN/APPG/Ag (1 : 2.5), BN/APPG/Ag (1 : 1), APPG/Ag, and BN/Ag were $84.60\pm 1.26\%$ , $70.13\pm 0.034$ , $65.60\pm 0.052$ , and $35.0\pm 0.45\%$ , respectively. The photocatalytic dye degradation performance of catalyst increases with high amount of supramolecular polymer in the composites. Reusability of analysis revealed that regenerated BN/APPG/Ag catalyst could be tested in at least three consecutive cycles in which proving efficiency removal of the RB 221 was found to be $83.7\pm 0.8$ , $63.8\pm 0.51$ , and $54.60\pm 0.78\%$ after the first, second, and third cycles of reuse, respectively. In addition, the absorption peaks of the RB 221 in solutions undergo upshifts relative to the free dye indicating the reduction of RB 221 dye for only BNNSs containing composite catalysts. Overall, the findings of this work are promising and therefore propose that BN/APPG/Ag could be applicable for the removal of dyes repeatedly for wastewater treatment in environment as result of their reusability and versatility.