Cellulose acetate nanofibers embedded with Ag nanoparticles/CdSe/graphene oxide composite for degradation of methylene blue

Abstract Dealing with the environmental hazards that might be released from textile industries into wastewater requires designing and fabricating efficient substances/composites capable of safely degenerating these harmful compounds. Herein, a composites comprising cadmium selenide (CdSe) modified with Ag ions and graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets were incorporated into cellulose acetate (CA) nanofibers for methylene blue (MB) dye degradation purposes. Results revealed that roughness average has increased from 16.6 to 29 nm while the tensile strength plunged from 8.68 ± 1.2 to 6.87 ± 1.1 MPa on going from CdSe@CA to Ag-CdSe/GO@CA, respectively. In contrast, the toughness values decreased from 2.98 ± 0.9 in CdSe@CA to 2.29 ± 0.3 MJ/m3 for Ag-CdSe/GO@CA, respectively. Additionally, the contact angles of the fabricated nanofibrous membranes showed marked decrease from 86.4° to 70.1° as the composition of the fabricated nanofibers is changed from CdSe@CA to Ag-CdSe/GO@CA. Significantly, the degradation of MB was dramatically enhanced reaching ~90% upon utilization of Ag-CdSe/GO@CA for 40 min exposure under visible light irradiation.