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Zinc oxide nanoparticle incorporated on graphene oxide: an efficient and stable photocatalyst for water treatment through the Fenton process

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Abstract

Textile industries release a huge amount of wastewater that holds a very high ratio of toxic contaminants, such as dyes and various organic compounds. These are harmful to the environment, and their treatment is very much required for a clean and safe environment. So, our work explains the enhanced degradation of dye by heterogeneous Fenton process using zinc oxide-graphene oxide nanohybrid (ZnG) to generate hydroxyl radical from hydrogen peroxide. Initially, ZnG nanohybrid was successfully synthesized via hydrothermal process; later on, UV-visible spectroscopy is employed for absorption spectra and optical properties. The X-ray diffraction pattern is employed for determining the crystal structure and phase identification of nanoparticles. A scanning electron microscope (SEM) helped to find out the morphology. The high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) was used to get an average particle size (4.36–9.77 nm). Fluorescence spectroscopy was used to find electron-hole pair combination in nanohybrid compared to individual ZnO and GO. Finally, the catalytic activity of ZnG was successfully studied for brilliant green (BG) degradation via a heterogeneous Fenton process.

Initially ZnG nanohybrid was prepared, and later, it was used as catalyst in Fenton process to degrade brilliant green.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by instruments, available in Govt. V.Y.T. PG. Auto. College, Durg (C.G.) sponsored by DST-FIST. The author would also like to thank the DST-Sophisticated Test and Instrumentation Centre, Kochi University India for XRD, SEM, EDX, and HRTEM analysis.

Funding

Dr. BJ is very thankful towards UGC, Delhi, India, for the research project grants (Women Post-doctoral Fellowship, No. F.15-1/2013-14/PDFWM-2013-14-GE-CHH-18784 (SA-II)).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Govt. V. Y. T. PG. Autonomous College, Durg, Chhattisgarh, 491001, India

    Bhawana Jain, Ayesha Hashmi, Sunita Sanwaria & Ajaya K. Singh

  2. Department of Chemistry, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh

    Md. Abu Bin Hasan Susan

  3. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, 610500, China

    Ambrish Singh

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  1. Bhawana Jain
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  2. Ayesha Hashmi
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Correspondence to Ajaya K. Singh.

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Jain, B., Hashmi, A., Sanwaria, S. et al. Zinc oxide nanoparticle incorporated on graphene oxide: an efficient and stable photocatalyst for water treatment through the Fenton process. Adv Compos Hybrid Mater 3, 231–242 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42114-020-00153-5

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