A cellulose acetate based nanocomposite for photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue dye under solar light

Abstract

In this work, cellulose acetate–tin (IV) phosphate nanocomposite (CA/TPNC) ion exchanger has been explored for its photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue dye from aqueous solution. The CA/TPNC was characterized using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The ion exchange capacity of nanocomposite ion exchanger was observed to be high (1.48 meq g−1) for Na+ ion as compared to their inorganic counterpart (0.56 meq g−1). The CA/TPNC material was the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue dye onto CA/TPNC was investigated for 140 min of solar irradiation at 662-nm wavelength. The 80 % the dye was removed onto CA/TPNC after 60 min of irradiation. The rate of photodegradation of MB dye onto CA/TPNC followed the pseudo-first-order kinetic model.