Abstract
In the present study, ecofriendly green synthesized ZnO/CuO nanorods were prepared by using the stabilizing and reducing characteristics of the alginate biopolymer. The bionanocomposite (BNC) material was characterized by various sophisticated analytical tools such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy–energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, UV–visible spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, and the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) method. The composition of ZnO/CuO@Alg BNC was found to be C (16.16 ± 0.42%), O (42.26 ± 1.87%), Cu (31.96 ± 1.05%), and Zn (9.62 ± 0.48%), which also supports the approximate 3:1 ratio of Cu2+ and Zn2+ taken as the precursor. The nanocrystalline spinel ferrite was found to have a BET specific surface area of 19.24 m2 g–1 with a total pore volume of 0.075 cm3 g–1 and 1.45 eV as the band gap energy (Eg). Further, the material was applied for the photodegradation of p-nitrophenol (PNP) under the advanced oxidative process (AOP) under visible sunlight irradiation. The visible light radiation was used for the degradation of PNP under pH 2 conditions and resulted in 98.38% of the photocatalytic efficiency of the ZnO/CuO@Alg catalyst within 137 min of irradiation time. The photocatalytic reaction was best defined by the pseudo-first-order kinetics which involves the adsorption of the PNP molecule on the surface of the catalyst, thereby demineralizing it in the presence of advanced active •OH radicals. The values of rate constant for the pseudo-first-order model (k1) were calculated as 0.013, 0.016, 0.019, 0.021, and 0.023 min–1 with half-life periods of 53.31, 43.31, 36.47, 33.00, and 30.13 min for 10–50 mg L–1 PNP concentrations. The presence of t-butyl alcohol decreases the photocatalytic efficiency, which suggests that the degradation of PNP was accomplished by the •OH oxidative radical.
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