Facile preparation and highly efficient photodegradation performances of self-assembled Artemia eggshell-ZnO nanocomposites for wastewater treatment

Abstract

Water pollution is an urgent problem in the world today. The discharge of industrial wastewater such as organic dyes will cause serious pollution to water bodies, thereby affecting people's lives. Facing the increasingly severe water pollution problem, the demand for efficient dye degradation materials is also increasing. Artemia cyst shell (ACS), as a natural biological material, has a large number of microporous structures, so it can be used as a carrier for high-efficiency nanoscale catalytic materials. In this work, ACS-ZnO nanocomposites were successfully synthesized by a combination of high-temperature calcination and hydrothermal synthesis, and their properties and photocatalytic degradation properties for dyes were studied. Artemia cyst shells are calcined at high temperature to form an organic porous skeleton after pretreated. The structure is then loaded with ZnO nanoparticles to synthesize the target product through a hydrothermal reaction. Finally, the material is used to degrade methylene blue, Rhodamine B, and neutral red respectively under light irradiation. The results show that the photodegradation effect of ACS-ZnO nanocomposites with a certain ZnO content is significantly stronger than that of pure ZnO nanoparticles. At the same time, cyclic experiments show the high stability and sustainable use of this composite material.