Abstract
About one million tons of pesticide effluents were discharged into natural streams and water bodies from local industries and agricultural fields. In view of growing environmental issues there is a requirement for the termination of pesticides and its residues from local and commercial water streams. Photocatalytic degradation method is regarded as a convenient method for the treatment of organic contaminants because of its low cost, lack of secondary pollutants and eco-friendly character. In this study an enhanced and visible light effective ZnO/MgO nanocomposite photocatalyst has been synthesized by a wet chemical method using zinc acetate and magnesium chloride as precursor. The prepared sample has been examined to diagnose its structural, morphological, optical and fluorescence properties using XRD, UV-Vis, SEM, EDX, FT-IR and fluorescence spectral analysis. The organophosphorous pesticide, quinalphos, has a wide application worldwide, particularly to control the population of pests. Due to its toxic character it is necessary to eradicate quinalphos and its residues from the environment. The synthesised ZnO/MgO nanocomposite is analysed to degrade quinalphos pesticide under direct sunlight at neutral pH. The photocatalytic performance of ZnO/MgO nanocomposite is examined by loading 4 mg/L of the catalyst in 20 ppm of the quinalphos solution to achieve 98% degradation in forty minutes. Moreover, this nanocomposite could be separated and utilised up to five cycles with no change in its activity.
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