Reducing Textile Dyes from Liquid Waste Using ZnO/Silica Aerogel Nanocomposite

Abstract

Dye waste has become the most significant source of organic water pollution in recent years due to the increasing pace of the textile industry in Indonesia. The problem of increasing organic pollutants produced from dyes gets enormous attention because of the problematic natural degradation of dyes in water. Widely utilized textile dyes are remazol red and methylene blue. One of the most effective waste treatment techniques is photocatalyst. ZnO is a semiconductor that can be applied as a photocatalyst. However, the weak compatibility of ZnO can cause aggregation. Therefore, the weakness of ZnO was overcome by adding silica aerogel matrix to produce ZnO/Silica aerogel nanocomposite materials. This study aims to determine the ability of ZnO/Silica aerogel nanocomposite in reducing the levels of remazol red and methylene blue dyes. The effect of irradiation variations (UV light, sunlight, and without radiation) was observed in this study. The silica aerogel was synthesized using the sol-gel method and then composited with ZnCl2 using the molten salt method to produce ZnO/Silica aerogel nanocomposites. The result showed that ZnO/Silica aerogel nanocomposites could degrade methylene blue better than remazol red. The percentage of degradation methylene blue in the variation condition (sunlight, UV light, and without radiation) respectively is 97.2%, 94.24%, and 86.50%. In comparison, in remazol red with the same variation condition, the degradation percentage is 10.86%, 13%, and 13.46%.