Fabrication of CoCr2O4 nanoparticles using polyacrylamide gel polymer template

Hypothesis: 

Due to the special properties of nanomaterials, the production of nanoparticles has received much attention in recent years and various methods have been used to produce these materials. One of the methods is to use polymer structures to control nanostructures. Therefore, it is possible to produce cobalt chromate nanoparticles with certain dimensions using a polymer network with controllable pore size.

Polyacrylamide gel was used as a template to trap metal ions to form nanoparticles in this polymer template, and the polymer network was removed with the aid of heat treatment to produce the final nanoparticles. Therefore, cobalt chromate nanoparticles were fabricated by polyacrylamide gel method. The synthetic parameters like the temperature of polymer network formation and calcination temperature on the products were investigated. The manufactured product was characterized by different methods of analysis.

The results showed that the gel formation rate becomes faster with increasing temperature. X-Ray diffraction results showed that although the initial product is amorphous, a cobalt chromate crystalline spinel was produced after heat treatment at 800°C. Scanning electron microscope images showed the formation of particles with dimensions in the range of 50 to 150 nm. The thermal analysis results revealed that the polymer gel formation is destroyed after heat treatment up to 650°C. Electron microscope images showed that most of the particles have dimensions between 50 and 150 nm. The produced samples were used as photocatalysts for the degradation of methylene blue dye. The degradation results showed that the nanoparticles produced by this method effectively degrade the dye as a water pollutant. Also, the effect of the amount of photocatalyst on photodegradation yield was investigated and the results showed that by increasing the powder to maximum 3 mg, the degradation efficiency increases.