Gold Nanoparticles Decorated Borophene Nanosheets: An Efficient Catalyst for Ultrafast Chemical Dye Degradation of Methylene Blue and Rhodamine B

Abstract

Gold nanoparticles decorated borophene nanosheets (AuNPs-BNS) have been synthesized in the absence of external reducing agents, stabilizers, and templates, and demonstrate their catalytic activity towards methylene blue (MB) and Rhodamine B (Rh-B) as model organic compounds for ultrafast dye degradation. The AuNPs-BNS catalyst (average spherical particle size of 7.86 ± 2 nm) decolorizes the MB and Rh-B within 50 and 70 s, respectively. Furthermore, the time-dependent UV–visible spectra (30 µL catalyst) indicate first-order kinetics with rate constants of 0.0628 ± 0.008 s−1 for MB and 0.0496 ± 0.002 s−1 for Rh-B, which is significantly faster compared to existing reports. Moreover, the dye degradation efficiency of ∼97% for MB and Rh-B was achieved in a very short timescale. Besides, turnover frequency (TOF) is also calculated, and the obtained values of 4660 h−1 (MB) and 2289 h−1 (Rh-B) suggest the excellent catalytic activity of the AuNPs-BNS catalyst for efficient dye degradation under ambient conditions for clean water applications.