An Effective Strategy for the Photocatalytic Elimination of Industrial Wastewaters Via MgFe-LDH/TiO2 Heterojunctions

Abstract

Reactive dyes are presently the most common type of dye utilised by the garment sector to colour wool, cotton, and viscose-based clothing. By using the typical biological degradation & sediment absorb approaches, it is quite impossible to get rid of them. Thus reactive dye colors in the effluent are major environmental issues in recent times. In this work Reactive dye series has been choosen for the photocatalytic degradation studies over calcined form of TiO2 and MgFe-LDHcal nanocomposites (TiO2/MgFe-LDHcal). This work assesses, a detailed investigation of the photocatalytic degradation of the reactive class dyes Ca. Reactive green 19, Reactive red 120, Reactive blue 4 and Eosin Yellowish dye by layered double hydroxide (LDH) and TiO2 heterojunction (MgFe-LDHcal/TiO2). Here for the first time, photocatalytic application of the said heterojunction was investigated toward the degradation of the reactive dyes. As these dyes are cytotoxic, mutagenic, and inhibit certain mitochondrial functions and often are carcinogens. This heterojunction system degrades the reactive dyes in 1 hour of visible light irradiation. The said LDH heterojunction was characterised by powder XRD to confirm the phase and composite formation, Uv-Visible and PL spectra to know the optical activity of the material in presence of light. The size, interplanar spacing and morphology of the nanoparticles were inspected by HR-TEM analysis. All the batch experiments were carried out at room temperature, without any adjustment of pH, at the dye concentration varying from 20 to 50 mg/L. Furthermore, according to the rejuvenation study, the prepared LDH heterojunction system could potentially be put to use for a number of cycles.