Photocatalytic Decolorization of Brilliant Blue Dye Using Zinc Oxide in the Presence of Sunlight

Zinc oxide is of great technological importance in environmental remediation because of their capability to generate charge carriers when stimulated with required amount of energy. The promising arrangement of electronic structure, light absorption properties and charge transport characteristic has made it possible for its application as Photocatalyst. In this article decolorization of commercial brilliant blue dye was studied using ZnO as catalyst has been discussed. For decolorization of brilliant blue dye, batch experiments were carried out by irradiating aqueous solution of dye, in presence of ZnO under sun light. The effect of operating parameter such as catalyst loading and initial dye concentration has been systematically investigated using UV-Visible spectroscopy to assess their effect on rate of Photocatalytic decolorization. The degradation was found to be effective for catalyst dosage: 0.1g/l, 0.2g/l, 0.3g/l, 0.4g/l and 0.5g/l and concentration range 7ppm, 14ppm, 21ppm, 28ppm and 35ppm. The optimum condition established for degradation was; catalyst dosage 0.2g/l, concentration 14ppm for interval duration of 120 minutes. The experiment results revealed that more than nighty percent of decolorization were achieved for interval duration of 120 minutes for optimized condition of catalyst dosage and concentration variation and the performance of solar Photocatalytic system appears to be suitable for decolorization of brilliant blue dye.