Renewable and eco-friendly ZnO immobilized onto dead sea sponge floating materials with dual practical aspects for enhanced photocatalysis and disinfection applications.

In this study, we have investigated the role of natural dead sea sponge (DSS, Porifera) as a three-dimensional (3D) porous host substrate for the immobilization of nanostructured ZnO material towards the development of ZnO based floating photocatalysts for efficient removal of methylene blue (MB) dye under the illumination of sunlight. After photodegradation, the treated water after dye degradation contains several pathogens, different disinfectants or chemical reagents that are essentially used. This is not the case for DSS as it can naturally kill any pathogens during the wastewater treatment process. To explore these functions, ZnO nanosheets were incorporated onto DSS via hydrothermal protocol and the as prepared ZnO/DSS hybrid material exhibited approximately âˆ¼100% degradation efficiency for the removal of MB. Importantly, the degradation kinetics associated with the fabricated ZnO/DSS was remarkably accelerated as evidenced by the high values of degradation reaction rate constants (3.35 × 10-2min-1). The outperformance of ZnO/DSS could be attributed to the adsorption caused by its 3D porous structure together with the high rapid oxidation of MB. Furthermore, the high charge separation of electron-hole pairs, natural porosity, and abundant catalytic sites offered by the hybrid ZnO/DSS floating photocatalyst have enabled quantitative (∼100%) degradation efficiency for MB. Finally, the excellent reusability results confirm the feasibility of using natural ZnO/DSS-based photocatalyst for practical solution of wastewater treatment and other environmental problems.

Effective Removal of Methylene Blue by Surface Alteration of TiO2 with Ficus Carica Leaf Extract under Visible Light.

The present study describes the use of a leaf extract from Ficus carica as a source of natural antioxidants for the surface alteration of bulk titanium dioxide (TiO2) in two steps. First, the hydro-thermal treatment of the bulk TiO2 material was carried out and followed by thermal annealing at 300 °C for 3 h in air. The role of the leaf extract of Ficus carica on the performance of the bulk TiO2 material for the removal of methylene blue (MB) was also studied. Various analytical techniques such as powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) were used to explore the crystalline structure, morphology, and composition. The bulk TiO2 material after the leaf-extract treatment exhibited mixed anatase and rutile phases, a flower-like morphology, and Ti, O, and C were its main elements. The average crystallite size was also calculated, and the obtained values for the bulk TiO2 material, 18.11 nm, and the treated bulk TiO2 material with various amounts, 5, 10, and 15 mL, of leaf extract were 16.4, 13.16, and 10.29 nm respectively. Moreover, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy validated the typical metal-oxygen bonds and strengthened the XRD results. The bulk TiO2 material chemically treated with Ficus carica has shown outstanding activity towards the degradation of MB under sunlight. The 15 mL of Ficus carica extract significantly enhanced the photocatalytic activity of the bulk TiO2 material towards the degradation of MB. The dye degradation efficiency was found to be 98.8%, which was experimentally proven by the Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopoyy (FTIR) analysis. The obtained performance of the bulk TiO2 material with Ficus carica revealed excellent surface modifying properties for poorly-performing photocatalysts towards the degradation of synthetic dyes when used in their pristine form. The presented approach suggests that Ficus carica could be of great interest for tuning the surface properties of materials, either in the form of nano-size or bulk-phase in a particular application.

Tin as an Effective Doping Agent into ZnO for the Improved Photodegradation of Rhodamine B.

We have fabricated ZnO nano rods by hydrothermal method and successively doped them with tin (Sn) using different concentrations of 25, 50, 75 and 100 mg of tin chloride. XRD of the fabricated structures showed that ZnO possess hexagonal wurtzite phase. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to explore the morphology and it shows nanorod like morphology for all samples and no considerable change in the structural features were found. The dimension of nanorod is 200 to 300 nm. The doped materials were then investigated for their photo catalytic degradation of environmental pollutant Rhodamine B. The performance of doped ZnO is compared with the pristine ZnO. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to explore the morphology and it shows nanorod like morphology for all samples and no considerable change in the structural features were found. The dimension of nanorod is 200 to 300 nm. XRD of the fabricated structures showed that ZnO possess hexagonal wurtzite phase. Photo catalytic activity of rhodamine B was investigated under UV light and a maximum degradation efficiency of 85% was obtained. The optical property reveals the reduction in band gap of upto 17.14% for 100 mg Sn doped ZnO. The degradation is followed by the pseudo order kinetics. The produced results are unique in terms of facile synthesis of Sn doped ZnO and excellent photo degradation efficiency, therefore these materials can be used for other environmental applications.