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Photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange using pullulan-mediated porous zinc oxide microflowers

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Abstract

One of mankind’s biggest concerns is water pollution. Textile industry emerged as one of the main contributors with dyes as the main pollutant. Presence of dyes in water is very dangerous due to their toxicity; thus, it is important to remove them from water. In these recent years, heterogeneous advance oxidation process surfaced as a possible dyes’ removal technique. This process utilizes semiconductor as photocatalyst to degrade the dyes in presence of light and zinc oxide (ZnO) appears to be a promising photocatalyst for this process. In this study, pullulan, a biopolymer, was used to produce porous ZnO microflowers (ZnO-MFs) through green synthesis via precipitation method. The effects of pullulan’s amount on the properties of ZnO-MFs were investigated. The ZnO-MF particle size decreased with the increased of pullulan amount. Interestingly, formation of pores occurred in presence of pullulan. The synthesized ZnO-MFs have the surface area ranging from 6.22 to 25.65 m2 g−1 and pore volume up to 0.1123 cm3 g−1. The ZnO-MF with the highest surface area was chosen for photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange (MO). The highest degradation occurred in 300 min with 150 mg catalyst dosage, 10 ppm initial dye concentration, and pH 7 experimental conditions. However, through comparison of photodegradation of MO with all synthesized ZnO-MFs, 25PZ exhibited the highest degradation rate. This shows that photocatalytic activity is not dependent on surface area alone. Based on these results, ZnO-MF has the potential to be applied in wastewater treatment. However, further improvement is needed to increase its photocatalytic activity.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge and express their gratitude to the Research Management Centre (RMC) of UTM and Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology (MJIIT) for providing excellent research environment and facilities.

Funding

This study received funding from the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education under the Tier 1 grant (Grant no. #20H33 and #20H55) and Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) (Grant No. 5F031)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Jalan Sultan Yahya Petra, 54100, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Eleen Dayana Mohamed Isa, Nurfatehah Wahyuny Che Jusoh & Kamyar Shameli

  2. Advanced Materials Research Group, Center of Hydrogen Energy, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 54100, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Nurfatehah Wahyuny Che Jusoh

  3. Malaysian Nuclear Agency, Bangi, 43000, Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia

    Roshasnorlyza Hazan

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  1. Eleen Dayana Mohamed Isa
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  2. Nurfatehah Wahyuny Che Jusoh
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  3. Roshasnorlyza Hazan
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Contributions

Eleen Dayana Mohamed Isa carried out the synthesis, characterization, photocatalytic studies, data interpretation, and manuscript preparation. Nurfatehah Wahyuny Che Jusoh is involved in the development of the research and characterization and interpretation of data. Roshasnorlyza Hazan is involved in the characterization and interpretation of data. Kamyar Shameli contributes in the development of the research, characterization, data interpretation, and manuscript preparation.

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Correspondence to Kamyar Shameli.

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Mohamed Isa, E.D., Che Jusoh, N.W., Hazan, R. et al. Photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange using pullulan-mediated porous zinc oxide microflowers. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 5774–5785 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10939-1

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