Synthesized of nanophotocatalyst ZnO and ZnO doped with SnO2 and their application photochemical degradation a surfactant in aqueous solutions

Abstract

In this paper, we synthesized of pure ZnO and ZnO doped with SnO2 nanophotocatalyst by sol gel method. The successful synthesis of ZnO nanopowders was evident by XRD lines. Furthermore SnO2 were well incorporated into the ZnO crystal lattice in doped sample. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis revealed that the SnO2 were well incorporated into the ZnO crystal lattice. The photocatalytic activities of these materials were investigated for Sodium alkyl benzene sulfonate removal from aqueous solution under UV light irradiation. It was shown that the use of ZnO/SnO2 as photocatalyst have better photocatalytic activity for degradation of Sodium alkyl benzene sulfonate than ZnO. The effects of initial concentration of surfactant, catalyst loading, pH, addition of oxidant on the reaction rate were ascertained and optimum conditions for maximum degradation was determined.