our article entitled " Effective photocatalytic degradation and physical adsorption of methylene blue using cellulose/GO/TiO₂ hydrogels " was accepted by RSC on 17 Jun 2020  (RSC Adv., 2020,10, 23936-23943). The first author is Dr. Yi'an Chen, the corresponding author is Professor Qi Haisong and Jian Kang of Beijing State Key Laboratory of NBC Protection for Civilian.

Article address:https://doi.org/10.1039/D0RA04509H

 The study mainly introduces an environmentally friendly cellulose/GO/TiO₂ hydrogel photocatalyst has been successfully fabricated via a green, simple, and one-step method and evaluated as the photocatalyst and adsorbent for the removal of MB. The XRD and FTIR analysis suggested the strong interaction among cellulose, GO and TiO₂, resulting from the formation of hydrogen bonds. Due to the unique porous structure of cellulose hydrogel and introduction of GO, the cellulose/GO/TiO₂ hydrogel showed superior (degradation ratio ∼ 93%) and reproducible (no significant during the ten consecutive cycles) performance in the removal of MB under UV light.

This green hydrogel is a promising candidate for dye wastewater treatment. Moreover, this work is expected to extend the scope of bio-templated synthesis of other nanomaterials for various applications.

Fig. 1 Fabrication of cellulose/GO/TiO₂ composite hydrogel.