Fruit juice carbon dots, zinc oxide composite for photocatalytic degration of organic pollutants · Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Author: Chitare, Loveness
Title: Fruit juice carbon dots, zinc oxide composite for photocatalytic degration of organic pollutants
Abstract: To create a composite photocatalyst (ZnO/CQDs) for the breakdown of methyl blue, the CQDs from citrus juice (lemon) by hydrothermal synthesis were combined with ZnO produced via the precipitation method using the incubation technique. The main goal of the composite photocatalyst were to lessen the drawbacks of conventional quantum semiconductors employed in the photocatalytic decay of organic contaminants. The ZnO /CQDs composite photocatalysts formed were characterized by adsorption- desorption isotherms, FTIR and UV/Vis spectrophotometer calibration curve of MB (methyl blue) was plotted before catalysis process. Optimization parametric variables for example pH, temperature, contact time and catalyst dosage were conducted to ensure high efficiency in the photo-oxidation procedure. The degradation processes for the organic contaminant were conducted in a laboratory scale in a small reactor cell surrounded by UV lights. Composite ZnO/CQDs6 was used in the catalysis process which had the highest rate of degradation of 95.04%. This study uses that Langmuir adsorption isotherm and follows the pseudo-first order. The reaction process was spontaneous and endothermic as evidenced by thermodynamic results.
Date: 2023
Publisher: BUSE
Keywords: Fruit juice carbon dots; Photocatalytic degration
Supervisor: Dr Munzeiwa, W.