A Comparative study between TiO2 and ZnO photocatalysis: Photocatalytic degradation of textile dye

Abstract

The present study involves the photocatalytic degradation of three dyes: Reactive Bézactiv yellow (RBY); Direct Triamine yellow86 (DY86); and Methyl Orange (OM) with different structure and containing different substitute groups. The photocatalytic degradation has been investigated using two types of synthesis semiconductors namely titanium dioxide (TiO2) and zinc oxide (ZnO), as photocatalyst, in aqueous solution under solar irradiation. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by: Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The progress of photocatalytic degradation of the commercial dyes, has been observed by monitoring the change in substrate concentration of the compound employing High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). The photodegradation rate was determined for each experiment and the highest values were observed for ZnO.