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Plastic debris is a major environmental concern, and to find effective ways to reuse polystyrene (PS) presents major challenges. Here, it is demonstrated that polystyrene foams impregnated with SnO are easily generated from plastic debris and can be applied to photocatalytic degradation of dyes. SnO nanoparticles were synthesized by a polymeric precursor method, yielding specific surface areas of 15 m/g after heat treatment to 700 °C. Crystallinity, size, and shape of the SnO particles were assessed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM), demonstrating the preparation of crystalline spherical nanoparticles with sizes around 20 nm. When incorporated into PS foams, which were generated using a thermally induced phase separation (TIPS) process, the specific surface area increased to 48 m/g. These PS/SnO nanofoams showed very good efficiency for photodegradation of rhodamine B, under UV irradiation, achieving up to 98.2% removal. In addition the PS/SnO nanofoams are shown to retain photocatalytic activity for up to five reuse cycles.

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Zn-doped YIG was prepared using the sol-gel method with TGA measurements showing the phase formation between 900 and 1000 8C. XRD analysis showed close to 1100 8C the formation of Franklinite phase, coexisting with the cubic YIG.