The experimental and statistical investigation of the photo degradation of methyl orange using modified MWCNTs with different amount of ZnO nanoparticles

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is the experimental and statistical investigation of the photo decomposition of methyl orange using decorated multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with different amount of ZnO nanoparticles (MWCNT–ZnO). The synthesized photocatalysts are characterized by FTIR and TEM. The synthesis of ZnO nanoparticles in the all synthesized photocatalysts is confirmed using FTIR analysis. TEM results depict that the outer surface of MWCNTs have been successfully decorated with ZnO nanoparticles and enhancement of ZnO precursor leads to the augmentation of decorated ZnO nanoparticles. The photocatalytic performance investigation reveals that the photo degradation of methyl orange increases with respect to the UV irradiation time and weight fraction of different kinds of MWCNT–ZnO. However, the influence of weight fraction (0.1, 0.2 and 0.5% wt) on the decomposition of pollutant is higher than that of UV irradiation time (ranging from 5 to 30 min). The results show that the enhancement of decorated ZnO nanoparticles on the surface of MWCNTs leads to the increasing the photo decomposition of methyl orange. The statistical analysis using Duncan’s multiple range test confirms that there is a significant difference between different studied levels of UV irradiation time and weight fraction of MWCNT–ZnO in all of the prepared suspensions.