Immobilization of TiO2 Nanoparticles in Hydrogels Based on Poly(methyl acrylate) and Succinamide Acid for the Photodegradation of Organic Dyes

Hydrogels have excellent properties that make them ideally suited as host matrices for the immobilization of photoreactive materials such as TiO2 nanoparticles that serve as catalysts in the photodegradation of organic dyes, which is of great importance in practical water pollution treatment applications. However, the application of hydrogels for this purpose remains poorly studied. The present study addresses this issue by developing two types of hydrogels based on poly(methyl acrylate) and succinamide acid with embedded TiO2 nanoparticles for use as photocatalysts in the photodegradation of organic dyes. The results of the analysis demonstrate that the TiO2 nanoparticles are distributed uniformly in the hydrogel matrices, and the hydrogels maintain their original structures after use. The photodegradation efficiencies of the developed TiO2-hydrogels are demonstrated to be reasonably close to that of freely distributed TiO2 nanoparticles in solution for four different organic dyes. In addition, the results of degradation-regeneration cycling tests demonstrate that immobilizing the TiO2 nanoparticles into the hydrogels greatly reduces their loss during utilization, and the photocatalysts can be easily reused. In fact, the two TiO2-hydrogels retain reasonably high photocatalytic degradation performance after four degradation-regeneration cycles.

Automated summary

This study successfully developed hydrogels with embedded TiO2 nanoparticles as photocatalysts for the photodegradation of organic dyes. The results showed that the hydrogels maintained their original structures and exhibited photodegradation efficiencies close to freely distributed TiO2 nanoparticles in solution. Additionally, immobilizing the TiO2 nanoparticles into the hydrogels reduced loss during utilization and allowed for easy reuse, retaining high photocatalytic degradation performance after multiple degradation-regeneration cycles.