Zinc oxide (ZnO) and titanium dioxide (TiO2) powders were hydrothermally modified in 10 M sodium hydroxide solutions at 120 °C for 24 hours to alter its morphologies. Hydrothermally treated ZnO and TiO2 showed partially rod-shaped particles and used as catalysts in the photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B under UV illumination. The effect of operational parameters on degradation efficiency such as catalyst loading (0.5 g/L to 2.5 g/L), initial dye concentration (2.5 ppm to 12.5 ppm), initial H2O2 concentration (0.1 M to 4.0 M) and solution pH (3 to 11) were studied. ZnO showed better photocatalytic activity as compared to TiO2 because ZnO has a lower bandgap energy and more active electron-hole pairs formation in the system. The optimum conditions were 0.5 M H2O2, 1.5 g/L ZnO suspension and 7.5 ppm Rhodamine B at neutral solution pH. The degradation of Rhodamine B followed pseudo first order reaction, with the apparent rate of reaction, kapp = 0.0501 min-1. An effective, efficient and environmental friendly method to remove organic dye from wastewater was developed and could be implemented in treating various types of organic pollutants.
CITATION STYLE
Wai, K. P., Pang, Y. L., Lim, S., Koo, C. H., & Chong, W. C. (2019). Hydrothermal modification of zinc oxide and titanium dioxide for photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B. In AIP Conference Proceedings (Vol. 2157). American Institute of Physics Inc. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5126541
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