Enhancement of zinc oxide-mediated solar light decoloration of Acid Yellow 99 dye by addition of β-CD

Abstract

In the current work, the commercially available ZnO photocatalyst was used to investigate the photodecoloration of Acid yellow 99 (AY99) dye under solar light radiation. Promising enhancement of photodecoloration of AY99 dye was also achieved by the addition of β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) with the ZnO (ZnO–β-CD). The effects of process parameters such as initial concentration, pH, catalyst loading, and illumination time on the extent of decoloration were investigated. The optimum catalyst loading was observed at 2.0 g/L. The higher photoactivity of ZnO–β-CD/solar light system than ZnO/solar light system can be ascribed due to the ligand to metal charge transfer (LMCT) from β-CD to ZnII. The complexation patterns have been confirmed with UV–visible and FT-IR spectroscopy and the interaction between ZnO and β-CD has been characterized by FE-SEM, powder XRD analysis, and UV–visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy.