Machine learning based-model to predict catalytic performance on removal of hazardous nitrophenols and azo dyes pollutants from wastewater.

To maintain human health and purity of drinking water, it is crucial to eliminate harmful chemicals such as nitrophenols and azo dyes, considering their natural presence in the surroundings. In this particular research study, the application of machine learning techniques was employed in order to make an estimation of the performance of reduction catalysis in the context of ecologically detrimental nitrophenols and azo dyes contaminants. The catalyst utilized in the experiment was Ag@CMC, which proved to be highly effective in eliminating various contaminants found in water, like 4-nitrophenol (4-NP). The experiments were carefully conducted at various time intervals, and the machine learning procedures used in this study were all employed to forecast catalytic performance. The evaluation of the performance of such algorithms were done by means of Mean Absolute Error. The noteworthy findings of this research indicated that the ADAM and LSTM algorithm exhibited the most favourable performance in the case of toxic compounds i.e. 4-NP. Moreover, the Ag@CMC catalyst demonstrated an impressive reduction efficiency of 98 % against nitrophenol in just 8 min. Thus, based on these compelling results, it can be concluded that Ag@CMC works as a highly effective catalyst for practical applications in real-world scenarios.

Catalytic innovations: Improving wastewater treatment and hydrogen generation technologies.

The effective reduction of hazardous organic pollutants in wastewater is a pressing global concern, necessitating the development of advanced treatment technologies. Pollutants such as nitrophenols and dyes, which pose significant risks to both human and aquatic health, making their reduction particularly crucial. Despite the existence of various methods to eliminate these pollutants, they are not without limitations. The utilization of nanomaterials as catalysts for chemical reduction exhibits a promising alternative owing to their distinguished catalytic activity and substantial surface area. For catalytically reducing the pollutants NaBH4 has been utilized as a useful source for it because it reduces the pollutants quiet efficiently and it also releases hydrogen gas as well which can be used as a source of energy. This paper provides a comprehensive review of recent research on different types of nanomaterials that function as catalysts to reduce organic pollutants and also generating hydrogen from NaBH4 methanolysis while also evaluating the positive and negative aspects of nanocatalyst. Additionally, this paper examines the features effecting the process and the mechanism of catalysis. The comparison of different catalysts is based on size of catalyst, reaction time, rate of reaction, hydrogen generation rate, activation energy, and durability. The information obtained from this paper can be used to steer the development of new catalysts for reducing organic pollutants and generation hydrogen by NaBH4 methanolysis.

An efficient wastewater treatment through reduction of organic dyes using Ag nanoparticles supported on cellulose gum beads.

This work reports silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) supported on biopolymer carboxymethyl cellulose beads (Ag-CMC) serves as an efficient catalyst in the reduction process of p-nitrophenol (p-NP) and methyl orange (MO). For Ag-CMC synthesis, first CMC beads were prepared by crosslinking the CMC solution in aluminium nitrate solution and then the CMC beads were introduced into AgNO3 solution to adsorb Ag ions. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) analysis suggests the uniform distribution of Ag nanoparticles on the CMC beads. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis revealed the metallic and fcc planes of AgNPs, respectively, in the Ag-CMC catalyst. The Ag-CMC catalyst exhibits remarkable reduction activity for the p-NP and MO dyes with the highest rate constant (kapp) of a chemical reaction is 0.519 and 0.697 min-1, respectively. Comparative reduction studies of Ag-CMC with CMC, Fe-CMC and Co-CMC disclosed that Ag-CMC containing AgNPs is an important factore in reducing the organic pollutants like p-NP and MO dyes. During the recyclability tests, the Ag-CMC also maintained high reduction activity, which suggests that CMC protects the AgNPs from leaching during dye reduction reactions.

Chitosan hydrogel anchored phthalocyanine supported metal nanoparticles: Bifunctional catalysts for pollutants reduction and hydrogen production.

Metal nanoparticles possess high catalytic activity in various organic transformation reactions. A catalyst must be recovered and re-used effectively and economically to lower the overall reaction cost. The recovery of a catalyst remains a challenge due to their extreme small size. In this research work, catalytic metal nanoparticles were synthesized on Zn-phthalocyanine (ZnPc) and chitosan hydrogel (CH) composite which acts as catalyst support. The ZnPc-CH support facilitate the easy recovery of the loaded metal nanoparticles. Metal nanoparticles (M0) based on Cu0, Ag0, Ni0, Co0 and Fe0 were decorated inside and on ZnPc-CH hydrogel surface. The developed M0@ZnPc-CH were utilized for the enhanced selective reduction of toxins and hydrogen production by methanolysis and hydrolysis of NaBH4. Effective catalytic reduction and hydrogen generation was successfully achieved with Co0@ZnPc-CH and ZnPc-CH. Under optimized conditions, Co0@ZnPc-CH showed complete reduction of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) in 8.0 min with the fast 4-NP reduction kinetics (K = 0.611 min-1). Among the developed catalysts, ZnPc-CH showed fast H2 generation with high H2 generation rate (HGR = 4100 mLg-1min-1) under optimized conditions. Metal leaching from Co0@ZnPc-CH was negligible during recycling of the catalyst, suggesting that it could be implemented to 4-NP treatment from real water samples. Similarly, ZnPc-CH could produce same quantity of H2 throughout 4 continuous cycles of durability testing without any deactivation and leaching and ZnPc-CH showed high stability, indicating the effectiveness of the catalyst to be applied for H2 production on large scale.

Revisiting the Impact of Morphology and Oxidation State of Cu on CO2 Reduction Using Electrochemical Flow Cell.

Electroreduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) in a flow electrolyzer represents a promising carbon-neutral technology with efficient production of valuable chemicals. In this work, the catalytic performance of polycrystalline copper (Cu), Cu2O-derived copper (O(I)D-Cu), and CuO-derived copper (O(II)D-Cu) toward CO2 reduction is unraveled in a custom-designed flow cell. A peak Faradaic efficiency of >70% and a production rate of ca. -250 mA cm-2 toward C2+ products have been achieved on all the catalysts. In contrast to previous studies that reported a propensity for C2+ products on OD-Cu in conventional H-cells, the selectivity and activity of ethylene-dominated C2+ products are quite similar on the three types of catalysts at the same current density in our flow reactor. Our analysis also reveals current density to be a critical factor determining the C-C coupling in a flow cell, regardless of Cu catalyst's initial oxidation state and morphology.

Chitosan-coated polyurethane sponge supported metal nanoparticles for catalytic reduction of organic pollutants.

In this research work, polyurethane sponge (PUS) is used as a readily removable substrate for the synthesis of different nanoparticles on the surface and its use in reducing toxic dyes. An aqueous solution of 0.5 wt% chitosan (CH) was coated on PUS to prepare an ionophilic CH-PUS material. The CH-PUS pieces were then kept in 0.05 M concentration of four different salt solutions. After absorbing the metal ions for a 4 h time period, the CH-PUS pieces were treated with 0.2 M NaBH4 solution to convert the adsorbed ions to the analogous metal nanoparticles. The bare PUS, CH-PUS and M/CH-PUS were analyzed by various spectroscopic techniques. After catalytic testing of different M/CH-PUS under similar conditions using a model reaction of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) reduction by NaBH4, we found that Cu/CH-PUS outperformed among the other M/CH-PUS. The Cu/CH-PUS catalyzed the 4-NP reduction with the fastest reaction rate constant of 0.7923 min-1. We also tested with different factors affecting the reaction rate constant such as different weights of catalyst, various concentrations of 4-NP and NaBH4. Lastly, after testing Cu/CH-PUS catalyst for the reduction of different dyes, its high performance was observed for the congo red dye.