Construction of various morphological ZnO-NiO S-scheme nanocomposites for photocatalytic dye degradation

Abstract

The textile industry has a global environmental impact because of its discharge or dumping of wastewater into rivers, which has a significant impact on water resource quality. The removal of pollutant dyes from water using simple and efficient procedures is gaining interest worldwide. Hence, herein, a simple one-pot solvothermal technique is used to create various types of ZnO/NiO hierarchical nanostructures for photocatalytic dye degradation. Alcoholic solvents, such as ethanol, methanol, and propanol, were utilized for the formation of these nanostructures. The production of porous, marigold-like structures was observed through a morphological investigation. Appropriate characterization techniques were used to investigate the absorptivity, chemical composition, elemental state, crystallinity, and recombination rate. The porous flower-like structure with unique exciton acquisition demonstrated 82 % azo dye degradation, which was ∼ 3 and 2.5 times greater than those using pure ZnO and NiO structures, respectively. Reduced charge carrier recombination, rapid migration of produced electrons to the catalyst surface, and a mounted heterojunction across the interface contributed to this outstanding performance. Furthermore, the composite demonstrated remarkable reusability, retaining a dye degradation efficiency of 74 % after ten cycles. The nanostructure and remarkable dye-degrading capability of the synthesized composites demonstrate that they are suitable for photocatalysis applications.