Photocatalytic activity of NiO nanoparticles stabilised with Polyethylene Glycol

Parimala^a,b*, J. Santhanalakshmi^a
aDepartment of Physical Chemistry, University of Madras, Chennai-600025, India
^bAnnai Violet Arts and Science College, Ambattur, Chennai-600053.

A B S T R A C T
NiO nanoparticles stabilized with polyethylene glycol (PEG) polymer were synthesized and characterized using FESEM, EDAX, XRD, UV and FT–IR techniques. FESEM image shows that the prepared nanoparticles exhibits leaf structure. From XRD analysis the average size of the NiO nanoparticles were found to be 9±0.5nm. The as prepared NiO nanoleaves were used as photocatalyst in the degradation of bromophenol blue under uv light irradiation in aqueous solution. UV – VIS spectroscopy was used to follow the reaction kinetics. Degradation of the dye followed pseudo first order kinetics. Photocatalytic activity of NiO-PEG nanoparticles were compared with NiO nanoparticles without stabilizer and P25 TiO₂ powder.
Keywords: NiO nanoparticles, photocatalysis, polyethylene glycol, dye degradation