Photodegradation ability of electrospun Ag-Co/polysulfone nanocomposite nanofibers against acetamiprid pesticide

초록

Non-woven neat polysulfone (PSU) and Ag-Co/PSU nanocomposite nanofibers were prepared by electrospinning process. The electrospun non-woven neat PSU and Ag-Co/PSU nanocomposite nanofibers were characterized through scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffractometry (XRD). The SEM study presented that PSU and Ag-Co/PSU nanocomposites nanofibers were smooth, bead less, and randomly oriented. The diameter of neat PSU and Ag-Co/PSU nanocomposite nanofibers was below 800 nm. EDX spectra illustrated the elemental composition of non-woven neat PSU nanofibers and Ag-Co/PSU nanocomposite nanofibers, which showed the presence of Ag-Co NPs (nanoparticles) in the composite nanofibers. The FTIR spectrum of Ag-Co/PSU presented a peak at 710 cm-1, which might be due to the presence of Ag/Co NPs in PSU electrospun nanofibers. The photodegradation study presented that the neat PSU and Ag-Co/PSU nanocomposite nanofibers degraded about 74% and 83% acetamiprid pesticide within 5 h, respectively. It was also found that the neat PSU degraded about 20% and 67% acetamiprid pesticide while Ag-Co/PSU nanocomposite nanofibers degraded about 25% and 78% using 0.010 and 0.030 g nanofibers, respectively. Further, it was also found that the recovered PSU and Ag-Co/PSU nanocomposite electrospun nanofibers significantly degraded the acetamiprid pesticide. The photodegradation efficiency of recovered Ag-Co/PSU (47%) was higher than that of recovered neat PSU nanofibers (28%). It means that Ag-Co/PSU nanocomposite nanofibers had superior photocatalytic activity as compared to neat PSU nanofibers. Furthermore, the data were better fitted by the pseudo-first-order kinetic model compared to the pseudo-second-order kinetic model.

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