Fe/ZnO@ceramic fabrication for the enhanced photocatalytic performance under solar light irradiation for dye degradation

Abstract

Iron doped zinc oxide (Fe/ZnO) deposited on ceramic material by SILAR method was investigated. Fabricated material was characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-rays (EDX), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and UV–vis spectroscopy. It was found that the fabricated material was of hexagonal shape having 39.76 nm crystallite size with flower like morphology. Degradation of reactive black 5 (RB5) dye was examined using prepared material. The operational reaction parameters such as pH, sunlight irradiation time, oxidant concentration and concentration of RB5 dye were optimized using response surface methodology (RSM) and >90% degradation was achieved at optimum conditions such as pH 7, sunlight irradiation time 3 h, oxidant concentration 30 ppm and RB5 dye concentration 30 ppm. The recycling study of fabricated material was performed under optimized conditions and Fe/ZnO deposited on ceramic showed promising reusability and after fifteen runs, 50% performance was retained, which revealed the economical application Fe/ZnO deposited on ceramic for wastewater treatment.