Date of Award

Spring 5-1-2019

Track

Chemistry

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Chemical Sciences (MSCB)

Department

Chemistry

Committee Chair/First Advisor

Bharat Baruah

Committee Member

Huggins Msimanga

Committee Member

Altug Poyraz

Abstract

Nanostructure metals and metal oxides can be used for surface functionalization and combined with different materials to increase functionality. Recently, surface functionality has been of interest due to its multi-component and its ability to generate new material properties. One of its main application is the creation of nanomaterials because of its novel physical properties which contribute towards stabilization, strength, and catalytic properties. Nanomaterials makes it possible to fabricate objects in the nanoscale size range which offers beneficial physical properties. The nanomaterial distinctiveness allows for the creation of materials with unique characteristics for different applications such as photocatalytic coatings. Semiconductor and metal nanoparticles in heterogeneous systems have gained wide recognition in recent years because of their morphology-dependent electronic properties and their ability to integrate on various materials to improve functionality. Metal oxides, such as titanium (IV) oxide (TiO2) and zinc oxide (ZnO) have received much attention due to their chemical stability, non-toxicity, low-cost, and high catalytic activity. In this report, we design binary and ternary composite materials on cotton fabric (CF) namely CF@TiO2-AuNPs, and CF@ZnONRs-TiO2-AuNPs. In these composite materials, the nanostructured TiO2 and ZnO nanorods (ZnO-NRs) are deposited on CF by following in-situ method. Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are incorporated on the TiO2 or ZnO-NRs by in-situ synthesis. The nanocomposite materials will be characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) line analysis, and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The photocatalytic degradation of aqueous Rhodamine B (RhB) will be assessed by UV-visible spectroscopy at room temperature under a UV lamp. It was found that the ternary system CF@ZnONRs-TiO2-AuNPs exhibit the best photocatalytic performance in comparison to the binary system CF@TiO2-AuNPs.

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