Attachment of nickel oxide nanoparticles on the surface of palygorskite nanofibers

Chengli Huo; Huaming Yang

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2012.06.029

Attachment of nickel oxide nanoparticles on the surface of palygorskite nanofibers

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2012 Oct 15;384(1):55-60. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2012.06.029. Epub 2012 Jun 29.

Authors

Chengli Huo¹, Huaming Yang

Affiliation

¹ Research Center for Mineral Materials, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China.

PMID: 22819393
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2012.06.029

Abstract

NiO nanoparticles were assembled on the surface of palygorskite (PAL) nanofibers to produce NiO/palygorskite (NiO/PAL) composites via electrostatic attraction. The samples were characterized by thermogravimetric-differential scanning calorimetry (TG-DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Brunauer-Emmet-Teller (BET), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The interfacial characteristics between NiO nanoparticles and PAL nanofibers were in detail investigated. The PAL nanofibers were uniformly decorated with well-dispersed crystalline NiO nanoparticles with an average size of 8 nm. The results further indicated that the interfacial binding of NiO and PAL fiber ensured the stable composite structure of NiO/PAL. The NiO/PAL composites exhibited higher photocatalytic activity than pure NiO for methyl orange photodegradation under UV-light. The as-synthesized nanocomposites showed an interesting potential application in the environmental fields.