Highly efficient and Reusable ZnO microflower photocatalyst on stainless steel mesh under UV-Vis and natural sunlight

摘要

The photocatalytic process is used to remove organic contaminants, dyes, industrial sewage from wastewater before reusing it for human consumption again. Here a simple cost-effective ultrasonic spray pyrolysis (USP) technique is used to deposit ZnO microflower on glass and stainless steel (SS) mesh in a single step. X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy indicate the polycrystalline wurtzite nature of ZnO. Field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) shows the ZnO microflower structure. PL and XPS studies show the oxygen defect in the films. Photocatalytic degradation results show that methylene blue (MB) dye with 1 x 10(-5) M concentration can be degraded around 97.94% and 85% in 120min and 210 min with a degradation rate of 0.03035 min(-1) and 0.00917 min(-1) respectively using ZnO deposited on SS mesh and glass substrate in both UV-Vis and sunlight condition. ZnO deposited on SS mesh shows high repeatability performance to degrade the MB and it can degrade 96% of MB at 10th cycle. Degradation rate at base medium is higher than acidic medium. A plausible photocatalysis mechanism is also explained.