Abstract:
Due to increase in water pollution around the globe due to industrial wastewater, there
is an increased focus on photocatalytic degradation for treatment of industrial
wastewater. For this study, zinc oxide (ZnO) and zinc ferrite Zn(Fe2O4) have been
synthesized via co-precipitation route and used as photocatalyst for degradation of
methylene blue (MB) under visible light irradiation. The ZnO-ZnFe2O4 composite is
successfully fabricated as photocatalyst and its photocatalytic activity for methylene
blue (MB) degradation is successfully analyzed while comparing its efficiency with the
induvial material. The characterization of three photocatalyst has been carried out
utilizing XRD, FTIR, RAMAN, SEM-EDX, BET and VSM. These techniques confirm
the structural, morphological, chemical and magnetic properties of synthesized
photocatalysts. The photocatalytic degradation was carried out for all materials while
keeping pH, temperature, initial dye concentration and catalyst dosage same. The
results showed that ZnO showed highest degradation rate of 98.45% followed by
ZnFe2O4 and ZnO-ZnFe2O4 composite under irradiation time of 120 minutes. The
kinetics results showed that the photocatalytic degradation reaction adheres to pseudo
first order reaction. Posts photocatalytic XRD analysis showed the stability of
synthesized photocatalyst after degradation process. Mineralization analysis showed
that ZnO-ZnFe2O4 composite showed the highest mineralization of organic
contaminants. The study indicates that ZnO-ZnFe2O4 composite can be used as cost
effective photocatalyst with improved recyclability due to its magnetic properties, for
degradation of hazardous organic dyes from aqueous solutions.
