Photodegradation of reactive blue 19 dye using magnetic nanophotocatalyst α-Fe2O3/WO3: A comparison study of α-Fe2O3/WO3 and WO3/NaOH

The photocatalytic degradation of reactive blue 19 (RB19) dye was investigated in a slurry system using ultraviolet (UV) and light-emitting diode (LED) lamps as light sources and using magnetic tungsten trioxide nanophotocatalysts (α-Fe2O3/WO3 and WO3/NaOH) as photocatalysts. The effects of different parameters including irradiation time, initial concentration of RB19, nanophotocatalyst dosage, and pH were examined. The magnetic nanophotocatalysts were also characterized with different methods including scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), photoluminescence (PL), differential reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM). The XRD and FTIR analyses confirmed the presence of tungsten trioxide on the iron oxide nanoparticles. The VSM analysis confirmed the magnetic ability of the new synthesized nanophotocatalyst α-Fe2O3/WO3 with 39.6 emu/g of saturation magnetization. The reactor performance showed considerable improvement in the α-Fe2O3-modified nanophotocatalyst. The impact of visible light was specifically investigated, and it was compared with UV-C light under the same experimental conditions. The reusability of the magnetic nanophotocatalyst α-Fe2O3/WO3 was tested during six cycles, and the magnetic materials showed an excellent removal efficiency after six cycles, with just a 7% decline