Fe-TiO₂/zeolite H-A photocatalyst for degradation of waste dye (methylene blue) under UV irradiation

Abstract

Industrial wastewater contains non-biodegradable dyes that are highly toxic to humans and aquatic life. As solution from photocatalytic degradation, TiO2 is one of the effective photocatalysts for wastewater degradation, but it has low adsorption power. To overcome this deficiency, this study synthesized a new photocatalyst by Fe-TiO2/zeolite H-A. The photocatalyst was successfully synthesized by the impregnation method and was systematically characterized by XRD, XRF, SEM, FT-IR and UV-Vis DRS. XRD diffractogram at 2θ = 25.3° showed anatase phase of the photocatalyst. SEM results showed a rough and soft surface with a size of 491.49 nm. FT-IR analysis obtained the zeolite-A characteristic band, vibration of Ti-O-Ti groups and the vibration of the Fe-O group. The bandwidth of the band gap was 3.16 eV. The photocatalytic efficiency of methylene blue degradation reached 89.58% yield with optimum conditions: irradiation time of 50 min, pH 9 and concentration of methylene blue about 20 mg/L. Fe-TiO2/zeolite H-A as a new photocatalyst can be an alternative photocatalyst to purify methylene blue.

Keywords

• dye degradation
• photocatalyst
• tio<sub>2</sub>
• zeolite a
• ferrous material