Sonocatalytic degradation of 2-hydroxyethyl cellulose in the presence of some nanoparticles

•We study the sonocatalytic degradation of 2-hydroxyethyl cellulose.•We examine the sonocatalytic process in the presence of five types of nanoparticles.•The sonocatalytic activity increases significantly in the presence of the Fe3O4 nanoparticles.•We used SEM, XRD, GPC and FT-IR spectroscopy analysis for confirmation of the sonocatalytic results.

The degradation of 2-hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC) by means of ultrasound irradiation and its combination with heterogeneous catalysts such as TiO2 (Rutile and Anatase), Montmorillonite Clay (MMT), ZnO and Fe3O4 nanoparticles was investigated. The effect of the type and quantity of nanoparticles, the initial molecular weight of polymer and the different ultrasonic power have been studied. Degradation behavior of HEC was studied through FTIR, XRD and SEM techniques and kinetics of degradation was studied by viscometry. Also, reduce in molecular weight (Mw) of polymer was investigated by gel permeation chromatography (GPC) analysis. The results of experiments suggested that the sonocatalytic degradation of HEC were remarkably higher than sonolytic degradation. However, the catalytic activity of nanoparticles in contrast to the ultrasonic irradiation was different. The experimental results revealed that the best HEC degradation can be obtained when the added Fe3O4 amount was 0.4 g/L. Furthermore, kinetic analysis of the polymer degradation process was carried out in this study.