COMPARATIVE STUDY OF NiO-ZnO (NZ) AND CuO-ZnO (CZ) COMPOSITE NANOFIBERS FOR POTENTIAL APPLICATION IN WATER REMEDIATION

Abstract

The comparative study of NiO-ZnO (NZ) and CuO-ZnO(CZ) composite nanomaterials was investigated for photocatalytic and adsorption applicationin order to remove the Congo red (CR) dye in presence and absence of visible light. Both NZ and CZ composite nanomaterials have been fabricated by electrospinning followed by heat treatment techniques calcination. The products were characterized using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FTIR)andFESEM(field emission scanning electron microscopic), TGA (thermo gravimetric analysis), HR-TEM (High resolution transmission electron microscope), DRS (diffusion reflectance spectroscopy), XPS (photo luminance study) for their morphological and structural details. The photocatalytic experiments were conducted for the degradation of CR dye under solar irradiationIt was found that reactions followed first order kinetics from which the rate constants were determined .Adsorption study has done for CR removal in two cases with shaking(rpm=200) and without shaking. Adsorption isothermand kinetics study has been performed and it was found for isotherm , Freundlich model best fitted to data and pseudo second order were following the adsorption kinetics. The experimental results revealed thatin presence of sunlight CZ showed quite similar removal efficiency of dye than NZ, but in absence of sunlight NZ were displayeda better removal efficiency of dye.