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Catalytic degradation of methylene blue by biosynthesized Au nanoparticles on titanium dioxide (Au@TiO2)

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Abstract

The degradation of methylene blue is a critical procedure in its wastewater remediation and thus has inspired wide catalysis research with semiconductors such as titanium dioxide (TiO2) and rare metals such as gold (Au). In this study, we report bacterial cells assisting biosynthesis for Au@TiO2 as an efficient catalyst for the catalytic degradation of methylene blue. Multiple complementary characterization for bio-Aux@TiO2 evidenced the evenly distributed Au nanoparticles (NPs) on the bio-TiO2 layers. Meanwhile, bio-Au2@TiO2 displayed the superior catalytic activity in the degradation of methylene blue with the highest kinetics constant (kapp) value of 0.195 min−1. In addition, bio-Au2@TiO2 keeps stable catalytic activity for up to 10 cycles. The origin of the catalytic activity was investigated by the hydroxyl radical fluorescence quantitative analysis and optical band gap analysis. In the bio-Au2@TiO2 catalytic system, Au NPs decreased the band gap energy of TiO2 and enabled the generation of abundant photogeneration hydroxyl radicals, resulting in an enhanced photocatalytic activity. Our microbial synthesized bio-TiO2 and bio-Aux@TiO2 study would be useful for developing green synthesis catalyst technology.

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Funding

The authors thank the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41907291) and the Central Public-interest Scientific Institution Basal Research Fund (No. 2022-jbkyywf-lwj).

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Author notes

  1. Yanan Wang and Tieliang Zhang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Environmental Factors Control of Agro-product Quality Safety, Agro-Environmental Protection Institute, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, 300191, Tianjin, China

    Yanan Wang, Tieliang Zhang, Yujie Zhao, Tong Lv, Wenjing Liu & Xiaowei Liu

  2. Nanjing Municipal Design and Research Institute Co., Ltd, Nanjing, 210008, China

    Yanan Wang

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  1. Yanan Wang
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  2. Tieliang Zhang
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Contributions

Yanan Wang, investigation, data curation, and writing — original draft. Tieliang Zhang, methodology, data curation, and visualization. Yujie Zhao, resources and formal analysis. Tong Lv, investigation and data curation. Wenjing Liu, conceptualization, writing — review and editing, funding acquisition, and supervision. Xiaowei Liu, conceptualization, resources, and funding acquisition.

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Correspondence to Wenjing Liu.

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Wang, Y., Zhang, T., Zhao, Y. et al. Catalytic degradation of methylene blue by biosynthesized Au nanoparticles on titanium dioxide (Au@TiO2). Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 12307–12316 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-22945-6

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