Photodegradation Efficiency of Prepared and Commercial ZnO to Remove Textile Dye from Aqueous Solution

Commercial ZnO (c-ZnO) and prepared ZnO (p-ZnO) were applied under UV and solar light irradiation for evaluating the heterogeneous photocatalytic degradation of Remazol Black B (RBB) solutions. A comparative study of the experimental results demonstrates that, c-ZnO is more efficient for removing RBB than p-ZnO. The effects of various operational parameters such as the concentration of RBB, amount of ZnO and irradiation time have been studied and the optimized conditions for maximum removal of the RBB were determined and compared. The photodegradation kinetics was studied with modified Langmuir- Hinshelwood mechanism, which reveals the pseudo first order kinetics for photodegradation of RBB in the presence of p- and c-ZnO. Furthermore, Experimental results also demonstrate that photocatalytic activity for both types of ZnO is higher under solar light irradiation as compared to UV light.