Effective photocatalytic demineralization of reactive red 198 utilizing nanocomposite particles under UV light irradiation

Department of Chemistry, Sathyabama University, Chennai-600 116, India E-mail : ipsathyabama@gmail.com, iprabha2007@gmail.com Manuscript received online 04 November 2013, accepted 15 October 2016 The present paper discusses the synthesis and characterization of nano ZnO-TiO2 composite particles for the photodegradation of azo dye in wastewater. Nano ZnO-TiO2 composite particles synthesized by sol-gel process and XRD analysis used to investigate the structure and crystallite size distribution of composite particles. The photocatalytic activity of composite particles was evaluated using reactive red 198 as a model pollutant. The effect of wavelength of UV light on the photocatalytic degradation and the photodegradability of dye in nanocomposite particles were measured. The effects of operating parameters such as pH, catalyst loading and concentration of dye solution have been investigated. The photodegradation of dye solution follows pseudo-first order kinetics. The reusability of the nanocomposite particles has also been investigated