Degradación del colorante azul de metileno en medio acuoso por fotocatálisis solar

Abstract

Abstract: The present work aims to evaluate the degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye in aqueous medium by photolysis and solar photocatalysis (UV-VIS) on natural water and distilled water matrices using TiO2/clay, ZnO/clay, 100% clay and TiO2 and ZnO nanoparticles catalysts. The effect of semiconductor concentration was evaluated with pellets of 60%/40% and 80%/20% semiconductor/clay ratio, the experiments were developed with a load of 20 g/l in 100 ml of 10 ppm methylene blue solution, the time of kinetics was 4 hours, the tests were performed both in the presence of light and darkness. The degradation of the dye was evaluated by spectrophotometry, measuring the absorbance as a function of time of exposure to radiation, the results indicate that the removal by photocatalysis is effective for the TiO2/Clay, ZnO/Clay pellets prepared at 80%, managing to remove 97% and 98% of the dye in 4 hours of exposure.