Tailored chitosan-based entrapped catalyst for dyes removal by highly active, stable, and recyclable nanoparticles toughened hydrogel

Functional catalytic hydrogels were a promising catalyst carrier with the advantages of low cost, high efficiency and environmental friendliness. However, conventional hydrogels suffered from mechanical defects and brittleness. Acrylamide (AM) and lauryl methacrylate (LMA) were used as raw materials, SiO2-NH2 spheres as toughening agents, and chitosan (CS) as stabilizers to form hydrophobic binding networks. p(AM/LMA)/SiO2-NH2/CS hydrogels exhibited superior stretchability and withstood strains up to 14,000 %. In addition, these hydrogels exhibited exceptional mechanical properties, including a tensile strength of 213 kPa and a toughness of 13.1 MJ/m3. Surprisingly, the introduction of chitosan into hydrogels showed excellent antibacterial activity against S. aureus and E. coli. At the same time, the hydrogel served as a template for the formation of Au nanoparticles. This resulted in high catalytic activity for methylene blue (MB) and Congo red (CR) on p(AM/LMA)/SiO2-NH2/CS-8 %-Au hydrogels with Kapp of 1.038 and 0.76 min-1, respectively. The catalyst was also found to be reusable for 10 cycles while maintaining an efficiency of over 90 %. Therefore, innovative design strategies can be used to develop durable and scalable hydrogel materials for catalysis in the wastewater treatment industry.