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Abstract

The increasing contamination of environment by synthetic dyes poses a significant environmental challenge due to their toxicity and persistent. Photocatalytic degradation using semiconductor materials like zinc oxide (ZnO) has emerged as an effective approach for dye removal. This study explores the synthesis of ZnO nanoparticles through four different approaches: thermal decomposition of zinc(II) complex of salicylaldehyde thiosemicarbazone (ZnO-SB), hydrothermal (ZnO-HT) and cold-temperature (ZnO-CT) method using zinc nitrate hexahydrate as precursor and green synthesis method (ZnO-G) using the leaf extract of Annona Muricata (Soursop). The evaluation of their efficiency in degrading dye pollutants under UV light irradiation was also carried out. Salicylaldehyde thiosemicarbazone (L) was synthesized using both conventional reflux heating and microwave methods, while its zinc(II) complex (ZnL2) was synthesized by reflux heating. SEM analysis showed that ZnO NPs exhibit irregular spherical morphology, with ZnO-G displaying a densely packed structure whereas ZnO-HT, ZnO-CT and ZnO-SB exhibited a more porous morphology. XRD analysis revealed that ZnO-G, ZnO-HT, ZnO-CT and ZnO-SB crystallize in the hexagonal wurtzite phase with the average crystallite sizes of 18.00 nm, 43.09 nm, 29.22 nm and 19.27 nm, respectively, and optical studies showed that the bandgap energies of these materials are 3.25, 3.26, 3.38 and 3.45 eV, respectively. The photocatalytic performance was evaluated by examining the degradation of brilliant green (BG) dye under UV irradiation. Among all samples, ZnO-CT exhibited the highest photocatalytic activity, achieving 98% degradation of BG at 210 mins, following first-order kinetics. The effects of various parameters on the photocatalytic degradation of BG were also investigated. This study highlights the potential of ZnO-CT as an effective material for the degradation of harmful and persistent BG dye in environmental applications.

Article Type

Original Study

First Page

1

Last Page

20

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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