Fruit rinds extracted cellulose and its utility in fabricating visible light tin sulfide photocatalyst for the treatment of dye, pharmaceutical and textile effluents

Abstract

Fruit rinds isolated cellulose supported 2D tin sulfide nanostructures have been developed for the improved photodegradation of the standard and industrial organic pollutants. Some industrial organic pollutants are so persistent that they bioaccumulate in animal tissues and biomagnify along food chains adversely affecting humans, wildlife and the environment. For minimizing the cost of photocatalyst, extraction of cellulose was carried out from waste fruits peels (pomegranate, orange, sweet lime and banana) by simple chemical route which later was lyophilized to attain a nontoxic and economic support. These cellulose/tin sulphide photocatalysts were used to study the photocatalytic activity of Rhodamine B dye as standard as well as real sample analysis of industrial pharmaceutical and textile effluents. In all cellulose/tin sulfide nanocomposites, the greatest photocatalytic activity was attained where cellulose was in optimum amount (500 mg). The maximum rate was found to be ∼0.087 min−1 which was ∼20 times higher than the pristine tin sulfide nanostructures. For the quenching studies and photo stability issues of the photocatalyst, scavenging and recyclability tests were performed respectively. The improvement in an average lifetime from 72 to 123 ns showed that the photocatalytic activity increased with the effect of the cellulose support. This nanoscale photocatalyst would be beneficial for the humans as they don’t generate secondary contaminants unlike other methods and are also valuable for waste water treatment.