Zno incorporated on natural zeolite for photodegradation of methylene blue

Abstract

Zinc oxide was incorporated into natural zeolite (ZnO-NZ) by cation exchange followed by co-precipitation and calcination processes. The effect of the amount of ZnO loaded in the zeolite framework on the properties and photoactivity was studied. The resulted photocatalysts were characterized and were examined their photodegradation efficiency for methylene blue (MB) degradation under ultraviolet light. The results showed that ZnO was successfully incorporated and well distributed into the zeolite frameworks. The ZnO-NZ photocatalysts showed a higher specific surface area and wider bandgap than the bare ZnO. The photodegradation activity of ZnO-NZ for MB is twice as high as the bare ZnO. Moreover, the photodegradation activity for MB depends on the amount of ZnO loaded in the ZnO-NZ. Optimum MB photodegradation of 83.05% was obtained by using ZnO-NZ having 6.1% of ZnO fraction.