Controlled Synthesis Of Highly Active And Durable Catalyst For Photodegradation Of Organic Dyes

Organic dyes and pigments are widespread water contaminants, which are often found in industrial wastes like clothes manufacture, paper production, leather tanning, and makeups. The organic dyes especially Methylene Blue (MB) is one of the most widespread dye which is used as a material for cotton dyestuff, timber and silk.In spite of MB is not highly dangerous, it causes some bad effects, like eye burns which may be in charge of constant injury to the eyes of human and wild animals. Inbreathe the dye can cause a short time of fast or hard breathing, whilst swallowing it lead to a burning feeling and may be a reason of sickness, puke, excessive sweating, mental misunderstanding in addition to Methemoglobinemia.Various remediation processes have been used for the elimination of dyes from wastewater such as:physical method like adsorption, chemical and biological processes. All these methods have advantages and disadvantages in terms of their effectiveness, expenditure, and environmental impact. Adsorption is known as a more effectual process since it has the superior benefits of easiness in procedure, inexpensive, elasticity and insensitivity to noxious pollutants.Photocatalysis emerged as an efficient viable strategy for the treatment of organic dyes in water. Inspired by this here in we develop a facile one-pot synthesis of PAN/Bentonite-TiO2 nanofibers with controllable size and morphology for as an efficient catalyst for photo-degradation of MB. This is based on electrospinning of TiO2 nanoparticles with a solution of PAN and Bentonite. The as prepared PAN/Bentonite-TiO2 nanofibers exhibited superior catalytic activity and durability towards MB relative to Bentonite, TiO2, and Bentonite-TiO2, respectively. The fibers morphology by SEM which was uniform, well-dispersed, and with high yield nearly 100% in fibrous shape. The XRD analysis of PAN/Bentonite-TiO2 exhibited the same diffraction peaks of PAN with additional pattern is related to facets of TiO2. The results for TGA revealed high thermal stability for PAN/Bentonite-TiO2 relative to PAN/Bentonite.The photodegradation activity of MB by PAN/Bentonite-TiO2 was superior to all other catalysts. In comparison, the removal efficiency of MB by the as prepared PAN/Bentonite-TiO2 in absence of the UV irradiation exhibited greater difference, it is not only insignificant but also very sluggish owing to the neglected redox properties of TiO2 without UV. Interestingly, the results clearly demonstrated that, PAN/Bentonite-TiO2 reserved around 90% of its initial activity after 6 durability cycles relative to Bentonite-TiO2 (70%),TiO2 (50%), and Bentonite(42%).