Nickel nanoparticles-chitosan composite coated cellulose filter paper: An efficient and easily recoverable dip-catalyst for pollutants degradation.

In this report, we used cellulose filter paper (FP) as high surface area catalyst supporting green substrate for the synthesis of nickel (Ni) nanoparticles in thin chitosan (CS) coating layer and their easy separation was demonstrated for next use. In this work, FP was coated with a 1 wt% CS solution onto cellulose FP to prepare CS-FP as an economical and environment friendly host material. CS-FP was put into 0.2 M NiCl2 aqueous solution for the adsorption of Ni2+ ions by CS coating layer. The Ni2+ adsorbed CS-FP was treated with 0.1 M NaBH4 aqueous solution to convert the ions into nanoparticles. Thus, we achieved Ni nanoparticles-CS composite through water based in-situ preparation process. Successful Ni nanoparticles formations was assessed by FESEM and EDX analyses. FTIR used to track the interactions between nanoparticles and host material. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the nanocomposite displays an excellent catalytic activity and reusability in three reduction reactions of toxic compounds i.e. conversion of 4-nitrophenol to 4-aminophenol, 2-nitrophenol to 2-aminophenol, and methyl orange dye reduction by NaBH4. Such a fabrication process of Ni/CS-FP may be applicable for the immobilization of other metal nanoparticles onto FP for various applications in catalysis, sensing, and environmental sciences.