The effect of pH on the photocatalytic degradation of cationic and anionic dyes using polyazomethine/ZnO and polyazomethine/TiO2 nanocomposites

Authors:
  • MLMei-Ching Lin
    Mei-Ching Lin

Abstract
Advanced oxidation process (AOP) is a recently developed by the researchers for the wastewater treatment over a decade which has more advantages when compared with other conventional methods. Photocatalysis is the most efficient and attractive techniques for the degradation of organic pollutant using semiconductor nanostructured material in presence of solar energy. The researchers decided on the rising deprivation rate of pollutants by incorporating inorganic materials into conducting polymers to understand its synergistic and complementary behaviour among the polymer and inorganic materials. Based on this, the present study is to synthesize polymeric nanocomposite material ZnO with polyazomethine (PNZ) and TiO2 with polyazomethine (PNT) through ultrasonication technique. The synthesized polymeric nanocomposites were used for the photodegradation of cationic and anionic dyes. These synthesized polymeric nanocomposites can act as a potential alternate in future due to its enhanced dye degradation ability and higher stability nature. By varying pH of the dye solution at different time interval the degradation efficiency of photocalatystswere analyzed and found that cationic dyes are removed more when compared to anionic dyes.