Sustainable application of silvered nickel foam for the highly efficient degradation of rhodamine B

Abstract The use of organic dyes has led to serious environmental problems resulting from contaminated wastewater; hence, the development of new dye-removal methods is an important objective. Herein, silvered nickel foam (nickel foam loaded with silver nanoparticles) is reported to significantly degrade an organic dye in aqueous solution. 20 mg · l –1 rhodamine B is completely reduced within 20 min with a rate constant of 0.26 min −1 in the presence of nickel foam sparsely loaded with silver. A mechanism for the reduction of rhodamine B is proposed. Moreover, the silvered nickel foam can be recycled at least five times. This research demonstrates that silvered nickel foam is a promising pollution-control candidate material.