Acoustic cavitation assisted destratified clay tactoid reinforced in situ elastomer-mimetic semi-IPN hydrogel for catalytic and bactericidal application

•Sonication assisted destratification to laponite clay tactoids have been synthesised.•Hydrogel was soaked into silver nitrate and irradiated by UV-radiation for AgNPs synthesis.•In situ nanocomposite hydrogel is tough and rubber-like elastic.•Prepared semi-IPN hydrogel showed catalytic activity towards 4-nitrophenol. Ultrasonicaion is non-chemical process where acoustic waves have been targeted to aqueous medium dispersed precursor materials. In situ synthesis of silver nanoparticles anchored in hydrogel matrix has been opted via ~20 kHz frequency assisted (bath sonication) synthesis having the ultrasonication power intensity (UPI) of ~106 J/m2. Power intensity is inversely proportional to the surface area of the clay tactoids. The hydrogel have been prepared by in situ 20 kHz assisted sonochemical destratification of laponite clay tactoids which could be terminologically stated as ‘top-down method’. Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have been deposited in the surfaces of the porous matrix of hydrogel via ‘soak and irradiate’ method. Soaking of silver ions into the gel matrix is welcomed due to their efficient stabilization and fast transformation towards AgNPs. AgNPs played the key role in catalytic reduction and bactericidal activity. Moreover, the prepared hydrogel has enough robust to withstand cyclic stress, uniaxial stress and oscillatory stress which have been extensively justified by the physico-mechanical characterizations. The gel supported catalyst showed first order reaction kinetics and less time consuming period during reduction of 4-nitrophenol as a model pollutant.