The effect of pH on Synthesis of ZnO-Natural Zeolite Nanocomposite by Co-Precipitation Method

Abstract

Currently, the method being developed to overcome environmental pollution generated by synthetic dyes produced from the textile industry wastewater is by photocatalysis using photocatalyst materials. Photocatalysis is a relatively inexpensive and easy method to implement. Photocatalysts that have received major attention and widely studied are metal oxide semiconductors such as ZnO. Photocatalyst activity can be increased through the development of supporting materials such as zeolites. This study aims to synthesize ZnO-natural zeolite photocatalysts nanocomposite by co-precipitation method in order to take advantage of the adsorbent and catalyst properties in the natural zeolites and the photocatalyst properties in the ZnO. To study the effect of pH, ZnO-natural zeolite nanocomposites are synthesized with different pH under alkaline conditions (pH of 8-11). Nanocomposite materials obtained then tested its photocatalyst activity in degrading of 50 ppm procion red synthetic dyes. The ZnO-natural zeolite nanocomposites produced were characterized by using XRD, SEM, and BET. The synthesized ZnO-natural zeolite nanocomposite showed the best results at pH of 10, with the ZnO crystallite size of 20.99 nm, the surface area of 134.35 m2/g, and the Zn contained of 10.05%. Procion red degradation of 75.54% was attained by using ZnO-natural zeolite nanocomposite photocatalyst after 120 minutes of UV irradiation.