Ultra-Fast Degradation of p-Aminophenol by a Nanostructured Iron Catalyst

Abstract

Full degradation of p-aminophenol in aqueous solution at room temperature by using a heterogeneous nanostructured iron hybrid catalyst in the presence of hydrogen peroxide is described. A nanostructured iron catalyst was prepared by in situ formation of iron carbonate nanorods on the protein network using an aqueous solution of an enzyme, lipase B from Candida antarctica (CAL-B). A second kind of iron nanostructured catalyst was obtained by the sunsequent treatment of the hybrid with an aqueous liquid extract of Mentha x piperita. Remarkable differences were observed using TEM imaging. When M. piperita extract was used, nanoparticles appeared instead of nanorods. Catalytic activity of these iron nanocatalysts was studied in the degradation of the environmental pollutant p-aminophenol (pAP) under different operating parameters, such as pH, presence of buffer or hydrogen peroxide concentration. Optimal conditions were pH 4 in acetate buffer 10 mM containing 1% (v/v) H2O2 for FeCO3NRs@CALB, while for FeCO3NRs@CALB-Mentha, water containing 1% (v/v) H2O2, resulted the best. A complete degradation of 100 ppm of pAP was achieved in 2 and 3 min respectively using 1 g Fe/L. This novel nanocatalyst was recycled five times maintaining full catalytic performance.

Nanobiohybrids: a new concept for metal nanoparticles synthesis

“…5). 29 Very promising results have been demonstrated in the decontamination of waste water with very toxic bisphenol-A using metal nanoparticles biohybrids (Fig. 5).…”

“…Enzymes from different sources (bacteria, yeast, and fungi), obtained by recombinant methods and also with different sizes have been successfully applied to create metal nanoparticles (Table 1). 16,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] Transition metal nanoparticles such as Pd(0), Pt(0), Au(0) and Ag(0) have been synthesized by this technology.…”

“…16 The methodology for creating heterogeneous enzyme-metal nanoparticles nanobiohybrids has also recently been extended to other enzymes, native and also genetically or chemically modified. [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] This straightforward and environmentally benign technology allows the creation of biohybrid materials in a multimilligram scale. One of the main advantages of these biohybrid materials is their catalytic applications.…”

Design and synthesis of new nanobiomaterials with antimicrobial properties

“…The advantages of using proteins as scaffold of metal nanoparticles are plenty. They stabilize the nanoparticles, can act as in situ reducing agent, produce monodisperse nanoparticles, control the shape and size of NPs and allow to synthetize them in water at room temperature in a more sustainable and "green" way (Benavente et al, 2018a(Benavente et al, , 2018b(Benavente et al, , 2020Cuenca et al, 2016;Filice et al, 2013Filice et al, , 2021Lopez-Tejedor et al, 2018aNaapuri et al, 2022;Palomo, 2019). On the other hand, the fact that the metal nanoparticles are attached to a bigger structure could led to a less activity compared to the free NPs, as different studies evidence (Bastos et al, 2020;Slavin et al, 2017).…”

A Self‐contained Two‐electrode Nanosensor for Electrochemical Analysis in Aqueous Microenvironments

“…PAP is also used in the production of commercial dyes, as a photographic developer, and a petroleum additive. The wide-spread use of PAP in industrial applications resulted in a high risk of it being released into the environment as a pollutant, motivating researchers to develop PAP sensors [33,34]. Further, PAP has been determined to have biological significance as it is the product formed when β-galactosidase hydrolyzes paminophenyl galactopyranoside (PAPG).…”