Abstract
Heterogeneous photocatalysis using nanocomposites is of great research interest in the treatment of industrial wastewater. The impregnated photocatalyst was produced by liquid state reaction of ZnO/CuO nanocomposite with extracted eggshells. The structure, functional group, metal composition, bandgap, and photocatalytic activity of the nanocomposites were characterized by using X-ray diffraction, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, atomic absorption spectrometry, and UV-Vis spectroscopy, respectively, in the absence and presence of eggshells. Photocatalytic degradation activities of the nanocomposites under UV light irradiation have been tested for a real sewage sample taken from Debre Berhan Textile Industry. From the results, the optimized degradation efficiency of the dye was 97.95% with 0.4 g dose of the photocatalyst, 120 min irradiation time, 120 °C temperature, and pH of 6.7. The results revealed that eggshell impregnated nanocomposite had better catalytic activity than the naked nanocomposite. This is due to the highly porous structure of eggshell biomasses and their sorption characteristics. In conclusion, when nanocomposites are supported by eggshell biomasses, they are excellent photocatalysts and can minimize the contamination of organic dyes from textile effluents.
Highlights
Textile dyeing industries consume a huge amount of water and they produce wastewater, which has a high content of organic dyes (Omprakash & Karthikeyan )
The particle size was 7.61 nm and 7.3 nm for the naked and the impregnated composite, respectively, which is a smaller size (15–16 nm) than the findings of Widiarti et al ( ). This implies that the eggshell powder was providing biosorbents which increased the surface area by increasing the number of reaction sites on the nanocomposite (Widiarti et al ; Mekdes ), improving photocatalytic activity
The results have shown that eggshell impregnated ZnO/CuO nanocomposites possess higher photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange (MO) compared to the naked composite under UV light
Summary
Textile dyeing industries consume a huge amount of water and they produce wastewater, which has a high content of organic dyes (Omprakash & Karthikeyan ). These organic dyes have defined colors that. These dyes usually have a synthetic nature and a complex aromatic molecular structure, which makes them more stable and difficult to degrade.
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