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Enhanced simultaneous degradation of simulated dyes using ZnO/GCN heterojunction photocatalyst

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Abstract

The scarcity of water leads to research nowadays to focus on techniques for treating wastewater. Photocatalysis emerged as a technique of interest due to its nature of friendliness. It utilizes light and catalyst to degrade the pollutants. One of the popular catalysts to be used is zinc oxide (ZnO), but its usage is limited due to the high recombination rate of electron-hole pair. Herein, in this study, ZnO is modified with graphitic carbon nitride (GCN), and the GCN loading amount was varied to study the impact on photocatalytic degradation of mixed dye solution. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that reports on the degradation of mixed dye solution using modified ZnO with GCN. Structural analysis showed that GCN is present in the composites which proves the success of the modification. Photocatalytic activity revealed that the composite with 5 wt% loading of GCN showed the best activity at a catalyst dosage of 1 g/L with degradation rates of 0.0285, 0.0365, 0.0869, and 0.1758 min−1 for methyl red, methyl orange, rhodamine B, and methylene blue dyes, respectively. This observation is expected due to the formation of heterojunction between ZnO and GCN which creates a synergistic effect and thus led to an improvement in the photocatalytic activity. Based on these results, ZnO modified with GCN has a good potential to be used in the treatment of textile wastewater which consists of various dye mixtures.

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Acknowledgements

Eleen Dayana Binti Mohamed Isa is a researcher at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia under the Post-Doctoral Fellowship Scheme for the project: “Development of Bioplastic from Marine Seaweed and Improvement of its Properties Using Natural Sources.”

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge the support from the Ministry of Education (MOE) through the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (Ref: FRGS/1/2022/STG05/UTM/02/2—Interaction of ZnO/g-C3N4 with Polypropylene Non-Woven Fabric for Enhanced Continuous Flow Photodegradation of Cosmetic Industrial Wastewater) and Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology (MJIIT) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) for the funding and opportunity to conduct the research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Jalan Sultan Yahya Petra, 54100, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Eleen Dayana Mohamed Isa, Nurfatehah Wahyuny Che Jusoh & Amir Awalludin Mohamad Rodzi

  2. Advanced Materials Research Group, Center of Hydrogen Energy, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 54100, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Nurfatehah Wahyuny Che Jusoh

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  1. Eleen Dayana Mohamed Isa
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Contributions

Eleen Dayana Mohamed Isa carried out the synthesis, characterization, photocatalytic studies, data interpretation, and manuscript preparation. Nurfatehah Wahyuny Che Jusoh was involved in the development of research, characterization, and interpretation of data. Amir Awalludin Mohamad Rodzi carried out the synthesis, photocatalytic studies, and data interpretation.

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Correspondence to Nurfatehah Wahyuny Che Jusoh.

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Isa, E.D.M., Jusoh, N.W.C. & Rodzi, A.A.M. Enhanced simultaneous degradation of simulated dyes using ZnO/GCN heterojunction photocatalyst. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 116921–116933 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-27576-z

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