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Environmental problems with chemical and biological water pollution have become a major concern for society. Providing people with safe and affordable water is a grand challenge of the 21st century. The study investigates the photocatalytic degradation capabilities of hydrothermally prepared pure and Cu-doped ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) for the elimination of dye pollutants. A simple, cost-effective hydrothermal process is employed to synthesize the Cu-doped ZnO NPs. The photocatalytic dye degradation activity of the synthesized Cu-doped ZnO NPs is tested by using methylene blue (MB) dye. In addition, the parameters that affect photodegradation efficiency, such as catalyst concentration, starting potential of hydrogen (pH), and dye concentration, were also assessed. The dye degradation is found to be directly proportional to the irradiation time, as 94% of the MB dye is degraded in 2 hrs. Similarly, the dye degradation shows an inverse relation to the MB dye concentration, as the degradation reduced from 94% to 20% when the MB concentration increases from 5 ppm to 80 ppm. The synthesized cost-effective and environmentally friendly Cu-doped ZnO NPs exhibit improved photocatalytic activity against MB dye and can therefore be employed in wastewater treatment materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores reduced graphene oxide-Fe 3 O 4 nanocomposites synthesis, characterization, and it's ability to degrade methylene blue dye using sodium lamp as the visible white light source. The modified co-precipitation method was employed for the synthesis of the photocatalyst. The photocatalyst was further characterized by various characterization techniques. Moreover, photocatalytic activity was performed by varying performance conditions, and analyzed the results. It was found that photocatalyst has highly active performance at the working conditions of pH 12 with 50 mg catalyst for 10 ppm methylene blue dye solutions and produced 98.3% degradation of the dye within 80 min. It was also observed that minor positive performance was observed on varying temperature and catalyst concentration. The photocatalytic activity was found highly dependent on the pH of the solution and increased with an increase in pH. Additional studies were also performed by adding some amount of hydrogen peroxide in the solution without changing its pH. It was also noted that as the amount of hydrogen peroxide was increased in the solution, there was an increment in the degradation of the dye. A maximum of 98.8% degradation was recorded with the 9 ml addition of hydrogen peroxide-containing 25 mg catalyst, pH 8, and at 40 °C reaction temperature within 70 min of irradiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]