Optimisation of purification techniques for the preparation of large-volume aqueous solar nanoparticle inks for organic photovoltaics

• Furqan Almyahi,
• Thomas R. Andersen,
• Nathan A. Cooling,
• Natalie P. Holmes,
• Matthew J. Griffith,
• Krishna Feron,
• Xiaojing Zhou,
• Warwick J. Belcher and
• Paul C. Dastoor

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 649–659, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.60

• determined for both ultrafiltration processes by a UV–vis spectrophotometric method as shown in Figure 2. Figure 2A shows the absorbance values of methylene blue (MB) at 664 nm for the filtrates of ASNP inks that were purified by the centrifugal and the crossflow ultrafiltration techniques with dilution

• ultraviolet–visible absorption spectrophotometer (UV–vis, Varian Cary 6000i) was used to determine the free SDS concentration. This method works by measuring the absorption of methylene blue (MB) and monitoring its reduced absorption after forming a complex with free SDS [29]. Measurements were conducted on

L-Lysine-grafted graphene oxide as an effective adsorbent for the removal of methylene blue and metal ions

• Yan Yan,
• Jie Li,
• Fangbei Kong,
• Kuankuan Jia,
• Shiyu He and
• Baorong Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2680–2688, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.268

• properties of Lys-GO were characterized using infrared spectrometry, scanning electronic microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The as-prepared Lys-GO material was systematically investigated in a series of batch adsorption experiments for the removal of methylene blue (MB) and copper ions (Cu2

• -GO. GO is an acidic material, and the basic L-lysine can adjust the acid–base properties of GO. Lys-GO showed excellent adsorption capability for the removal of methylene blue (MB) and Cu2+ from simulated wastewater. Results and Discussion Characterization of the Lys-GO hybrid Firstly, the obtained

• composite material was synthesized using graphene oxide (GO) and L-lysine. The interfacial property of GO can be improved by the chemical modification. The as-prepared Lys-GO material as an adsorbent was systematically evaluated with respect to the removal methylene blue (MB) and Cu2+ from simulated

Fabrication of carbon nanospheres by the pyrolysis of polyacrylonitrile–poly(methyl methacrylate) core–shell composite nanoparticles

• Dafu Wei,
• Youwei Zhang and
• Jinping Fu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1897–1908, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.190

• . Methyl methacrylate (MMA) was distilled at a reduced pressure before use to remove the inhibitor. Sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) and methylene blue (MB) were used without further purification. 2,2'-azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN) was used as the initiator and purified via recrystallization in methanol

• . Adsorption experiment The obtained carbon nanospheres were used as the adsorbent for the removal of methylene blue (MB) from water. A batch adsorption experiment was operated by mixing the carbon nanospheres (0.010 g) and MB aqueous solution (30 mL, 66 mg/L) in a 50 mL centrifuge tube, which was followed by

• timely discharge of the gases from the PAN-based nanoparticles. The formation of large pores, i.e., mesopores may be attributed to the residual gases which remain inside the nanoparticles. The carbonized sample CP6 was further applied as an adsorbent for removal of methylene blue (MB) (a common dye used

Two-dimensional carbon-based nanocomposites for photocatalytic energy generation and environmental remediation applications

• Suneel Kumar,
• Ashish Kumar,
• Ashish Bahuguna,
• Vipul Sharma and
• Venkata Krishnan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1571–1600, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.159

Enhanced catalytic activity without the use of an external light source using microwave-synthesized CuO nanopetals

• Govinda Lakhotiya,
• Sonal Bajaj,
• Arpan Kumar Nayak,
• Debabrata Pradhan,
• Pradip Tekade and
• Abhimanyu Rana

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1167–1173, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.118

• the degradation through the formation of radicals [6][25]. The wide band gap, high surface area of CuO nanopetals was expected to be suitable for the photocatalytic activity for the degradation of the common cationic dye methylene blue (MB), and hence initially, a study has been carried out in which

• /visible). A corresponding mechanism for the fast degradation observes was also proposed. Experimental Materials and instrumentation Commercial, high-grade copper sulphate (CuSO4·5H2O, 99.95%), sodium hydroxide (NaOH), ethanol (C2H5OH), acetone (C3H6O), methylene blue (MB), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2, 30

• blue (MB), in the absence and presence of H2O2, respectively. For the photocatalytic activity study, 40 mg of CuO nanopetal powder was dispersed in 40 mL of a 50 µM MB solution and allowed to stir for ≈30 min under dark conditions and was then subjected to irradiation using an incandescent lamp

Synthesis of graphene–transition metal oxide hybrid nanoparticles and their application in various fields

• Arpita Jana,
• Elke Scheer and
• Sebastian Polarz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 688–714, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.74

• decomposition of methylene blue (MB) [127], for the catalytic decomposition of aqueous organics [128], for carbon dioxide adsorption [129], for ORR [130], for enhancing electrochemical performance for supercapacitors [131][132][133], and for catalytic oxidation and adsorption of elementary mercury [134]. Bag et

Laser irradiation in water for the novel, scalable synthesis of black TiO_x photocatalyst for environmental remediation

• Massimo Zimbone,
• Giuseppe Cacciato,
• Mohamed Boutinguiza,
• Vittorio Privitera and
• Maria Grazia Grimaldi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 196–202, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.21

• a 2 MeV He+ beam with a scattering angle of 165° in normal incidence. The RUMP software was employed for the analysis of the RBS spectra. In order to evaluate the photocatalytic activity of the TiOx nanostructured film, the methylene blue (MB) discoloration test was performed [24]. The apparent

• recombination [2]. In the present work, the photocatalytic activity is measured by using the methylene blue (MB) discoloration method [27]. Samples for discolouration measurements were prepared by sandwiching the Ti substrate between a TiOx layer (irradiated surface) and a Pt nanoparticle layer, thus realizing

• the TiOx/Ti film in the IR, visible and UV spectral range. UV discoloration of methylene blue (MB) dye in the presence of TiOx/Ti/Pt foil. The discoloration of a MB solution without photocatalyst is also reported for comparison purposes. Acknowledgements This research has been supported by the FP7

Optical and photocatalytic properties of TiO₂ nanoplumes

• Viviana Scuderi,
• Massimo Zimbone,
• Maria Miritello,
• Giuseppe Nicotra,
• Giuliana Impellizzeri and
• Vittorio Privitera

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 190–195, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.20

• of methylene blue (MB). The obtained results show that TiO2 nanoplumes act as effective antireflective layer increasing the UV photocatalytic yield. Results and Discussion In order to observe the morphology of the films we analyzed the Ti samples after different etching times by SEM in plan view. Two

• of the synthesized material were evaluated by the degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye, a chemical compound commonly used to evaluate the photocatalytic efficiency of a material. The experimental setup was in agreement with the ISO 10678:2010 international standard. The samples were immersed in a

Organoclay hybrid materials as precursors of porous ZnO/silica-clay heterostructures for photocatalytic applications

• Marwa Akkari,
• Pilar Aranda,
• Abdessalem Ben Haj Amara and
• Eduardo Ruiz-Hitzky

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1971–1982, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.188

• immobilized and photoactive. To confirm this, the resulting ZnO/silica-clay heterostructured porous solids have been tested in photocatalytic experiments using water solutions of methylene blue (MB) dye or ibupofren drug, as models of organic pollutants, to prove their efficiency as photocatalysts for

• different applications as a photocatalyst. Hence, their activity has been tested using methylene blue (MB) model dye molecule. Figure 11 shows the concentration of methylene blue solutions (C/C0) as a function of the UV irradiation time in presence of SiO2/ZnO montmorillonite and ZnO/SiO2-sepiolite

Role of RGO support and irradiation source on the photocatalytic activity of CdS–ZnO semiconductor nanostructures

• Suneel Kumar,
• Rahul Sharma,
• Vipul Sharma,
• Gurunarayanan Harith,
• Vaidyanathan Sivakumar and
• Venkata Krishnan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1684–1697, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.161

• degradation of MO under irradiation from natural sun light. Comparison of photocatalytic activities of CdS–ZnO–RGO based nanocomposites for degradation of pollutants, including methylene blue (MB), rhodamine B (Rh B) and MO. Acknowledgements We are thankful to Advanced Materials Research Centre (AMRC), IIT

An efficient recyclable magnetic material for the selective removal of organic pollutants

• Clément Monteil,
• Nathalie Bar,
• Agnès Bee and
• Didier Villemin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1447–1453, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.136

• Da) was purchased from BASF, phosphorous acid, formaldehyde, hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide were obtained from VWR and dyes (methylene blue, MB, and methyl orange, MO) from Sigma-Aldrich. Dialysis tubings were bought from Roth. Absorbance was measured by using a UV–visible Perkin-Elmer

• of the NP-PEIP in removing pollutants was determined by the adsorption of two organic dyes used as contaminants models: the positively charged (regardless of the pH value) methylene blue (MB) and the negatively charged (from pH 3.4 to basic pH) methyl orange (MO). Such dyes are pollutants themselves

Impact of ultrasonic dispersion on the photocatalytic activity of titania aggregates

• Hoai Nga Le,
• Frank Babick,
• Klaus Kühn,
• Minh Tan Nguyen,
• Michael Stintz and
• Gianaurelio Cuniberti

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 2423–2430, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.250

• dispersion. The photocatalytic activity was examined by the color removal of methylene blue (MB) with a laboratory-scale setup based on a plug flow reactor (PFR) and planar UV illumination. The process parameters such as flow regime, optical path length and UV intensity are well-defined and can be varied

Selective porous gates made from colloidal silica nanoparticles

• Roberto Nisticò,
• Paola Avetta,
• Paola Calza,
• Debora Fabbri,
• Giuliana Magnacca and
• Dominique Scalarone

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 2105–2112, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.215

• dye methylene blue (MB, molecular weight (MW) = 320 Da) and the cationic protein ribonuclease A (RNAse, MW = 13700 Da). Results and Discussion Synthesis, preparation and physicochemical characterization of the colloidal silica nanoparticles and mesoporous coatings Amphiphilic block copolymers in

• organic impurities from the device. TOC analysis were carried out with a Shimadzu TOC-VCSH Total Organic Carbon Analyzer, equipped with an ASI-V autosampler and fed with zero-grade air (Sapio, Italy). Solutions of target molecules, i.e., methylene blue (MB in the following, Sigma Aldrich, 5.0 × 10−4 mol L

Effects of swift heavy ion irradiation on structural, optical and photocatalytic properties of ZnO–CuO nanocomposites prepared by carbothermal evaporation method

• Sini Kuriakose,
• D. K. Avasthi and
• Satyabrata Mohapatra

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 928–937, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.96

• degradation of methylene blue (MB) and methyl orange (MO) dyes under sun light irradiation and it was observed that swift heavy ion irradiation results in significant enhancement in the photocatalytic efficiency of ZnO–CuO nanocomposites towards degradation of MB and MO dyes. The possible mechanism for the

• carbothermal reduction-based vapor deposition method. We have demonstrated that swift heavy ion irradiation can be employed to significantly enhance the sun light driven photocatalytic activity of ZnO–CuO nanocomposites toward the degradation of methylene blue (MB) and methyl orange (MO) dyes in water. Results

• powders were purchased from Merck, India, while Cu powder was purchased from Loba Chemie. Methylene blue (MB) and methyl orange (MO) were procured from SRL, India. All chemicals used were of analytical grade and were used without any further purification. Synthesis and ion beam engineering of ZnO–CuO

Tm-doped TiO₂ and Tm₂Ti₂O₇ pyrochlore nanoparticles: enhancing the photocatalytic activity of rutile with a pyrochlore phase

• Desiré M. De los Santos,
• Javier Navas,
• Teresa Aguilar,
• Antonio Sánchez-Coronilla,
• Concha Fernández-Lorenzo,
• Rodrigo Alcántara,
• Jose Carlos Piñero,
• Ginesa Blanco and
• Joaquín Martín-Calleja

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 605–616, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.62

• photodegradation of methylene blue (MB) was performed using a set of five actinic lamps emitting at around 360 nm. The initial concentration of the aqueous solution of MB (purity 82%, Panreac) was 1.56 · 10−5 M, and the concentration of the photocatalyst was 0.3 g·L−1. The photocatalyst/MB mixture was kept in

Novel ZnO:Ag nanocomposites induce significant oxidative stress in human fibroblast malignant melanoma (Ht144) cells

• Syeda Arooj,
• Samina Nazir,
• Akhtar Nadhman,
• Nafees Ahmad,
• Bakhtiar Muhammad,
• Ishaq Ahmad,
• Kehkashan Mazhar and
• Rashda Abbasi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 570–582, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.59

• DPBF itself whereas methylene blue (MB; ΦΔ = 0.49 ± 0.02) caused a significant increase in the 1O2 levels. The ZnO NPs (ΦΔ = 0.41 ± 0.04) also had a significant increase in the 1O2 levels. However, its level was slightly lower than that of MB. Both ZnO:Ag (10%) and ZnO:Ag (20%) nanocomposites (ΦΔ

A visible-light-driven composite photocatalyst of TiO₂ nanotube arrays and graphene quantum dots

• Donald K. L. Chan,
• Po Ling Cheung and
• Jimmy C. Yu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 689–695, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.81

• methylene blue (MB). In a typical measurement, 10 mg photocatalyst were mechanically detached from Ti foils and suspended in 20 mL of 10 ppm aqueous solution of MB. The solution was stirred in the dark for 12 h to reach the adsorption/desorption equilibrium. The suspension was then illuminated with a 300 W

Effects of the preparation method on the structure and the visible-light photocatalytic activity of Ag₂CrO₄

• Difa Xu,
• Shaowen Cao,
• Jinfeng Zhang,
• Bei Cheng and
• Jiaguo Yu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 658–666, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.77

• activity of the prepared Ag2CrO4was highly dependent on the preparation methods. The sample prepared by microemulsion method exhibits the highest photocatalytic efficiency on the degradation of methylene blue (MB) under visible-light irradiation. The enhanced photocatalytic activity could be ascribed to

Enhanced photocatalytic activity of Ag–ZnO hybrid plasmonic nanostructures prepared by a facile wet chemical method

• Sini Kuriakose,
• Vandana Choudhary,
• Biswarup Satpati and
• Satyabrata Mohapatra

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 639–650, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.75

• microscopy (FESEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), photoluminescence (PL) and UV–visible absorption spectroscopy. The effects of citrate concentration and Ag nanoparticle loading on the photocatalytic activity of Ag–ZnO hybrid nanostructures towards sun-light driven degradation of methylene blue (MB

• -light driven degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye have been investigated. Results and Discussion Morphology and crystal structure FESEM images of as-synthesized ZnO and Ag–ZnO samples with varying citrate concentrations for different [Ag+]/[citrate] ratios are shown in Figure 1. The presence of

• ) were used as the starting materials for the synthesis of ZnO nanostructures. Silver nitrate (AgNO3, Spectrochem, India) and trisodium citrate (Na3C6H5O7, CDH, India) were used for the photodeposition of Ag nanoparticles onto ZnO nanostructures. Methylene blue (MB, SRL India) was used as dye for

Structural, optical and photocatalytic properties of flower-like ZnO nanostructures prepared by a facile wet chemical method

• Sini Kuriakose,
• Neha Bhardwaj,
• Jaspal Singh,
• Biswarup Satpati and
• Satyabrata Mohapatra

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 763–770, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.87

• materials for synthesis of ZnO nanostructures. Zinc acetate dihydrate, KOH and methylene blue (MB) were purchased from SRL, India. All chemicals were of analytical grade and used as received without any further purification. Synthesis of ZnO nanostructures ZnO nanostructures were synthesized by a simple wet

• ] by the tape casting method. These ZnO plates showed a good photocatalytic activity for azo dyes that depended on their surface area. Shen et al. [34] have shown that depositing ZnO on silica nanoparticles is a simple and effective method to prepare photocatalysts that could degrade 90% methylene blue

• (MB) in 60 min. ZnO nanoparticles (NP) that were synthesized by wet chemical methods can be passivated by a Zn(OH)2 layer during ageing. Hong et al. [35] have shown that the photocatalytic activity of ZnO NP is drastically reduced when the is surface modified with polysterene. In this paper, we have

Enhanced visible light photocatalysis through fast crystallization of zinc oxide nanorods

• Sunandan Baruah,
• Mohammad Abbas Mahmood,
• Myo Tay Zar Myint,
• Tanujjal Bora and
• Joydeep Dutta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2010, 1, 14–20, doi:10.3762/bjnano.1.3

• microwave irradiation) have already been reported in a previous publication [20]. A higher optical absorption in the visible region was observed in this case. The faster degradation of methylene blue (MB) in the presence of nonstoichiometric crystallites of ZnO prepared through fast crystallization can be