Removing hazardous organic pollutants, such as 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) and Congo red (CR) dyes from aqueous media and CO2 from the atmospheric medium remains a significant challenge. Herein, we report a facile in-situ synthetic approach for fabricating CuO-ZnO heterostructure photocatalysts through the surfactant-assisted co-precipitation method. The catalytic results demonstrate that the Cu1O-ZnO photocatalyst exhibits excellent activity under direct sunlight irradiation, owing to the heterostructure formation between the CuO and ZnO. The Cu1O-ZnO photocatalyst showed higher reaction rate constant (k) values of 0.20 min−1 for 4-NP and 0.09 min−1 for CR compared to previous reports. Additionally, efficient CO2 reduction was also achieved over Cu1O-ZnO photocatalyst. The optical and structural characterization results indicate that the improved photocatalytic reduction and degradation observed for the Cu1O-ZnO photocatalyst can be attributed to the strong synergistic interaction between p-type CuO and n-type ZnO and the construction of the p-n heterojunction. As a result, the absorption of visible light distinctly increased and inhibited the recombination rate of the photo-created electron-hole (e−/h+). Furthermore, the Cu1O-ZnO photocatalyst exhibited remarkable durability and recyclability, retaining high photoactivity (≥ 93%) after five cycles, demonstrating its potential for real-world applications in the photocatalytic reduction and degradation reactions under direct sunlight irradiation.
Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) ultrafiltration membranes were efficiently fabricated using a (0.1–0.5 wt.%) Ag 2 O@CuO heterojunction photocatalyst to form a PVC/Ag 2 O@CuO photocatalytic membrane (PM) stimulated by UV light. The PVC/Ag 2 O@CuO PM fabricated using the phase inversion process resulted in significant improvement in internal morphology, porosity, pure water flux, and separation efficacy of the doped membranes. The efficacy of the PVC/Ag 2
Semiconductor-based photocatalytic processes are widely applied as ecofriendly technology for degrading organic pollutants. Establishing photocatalytic heterojunctions with Z-type photocarriers transfer pathways is projected to be a superb strategy to enhance photocatalytic behavior. In this paper, novel and stable (0D/2D) heterojunctions of CoS-embedded boron-doped g-C3N4 (CoS/BCN) with a high rate of charges transfer/separation were assembled for degradation of malachite green dye (MG). The CoS/BCN photocatalyst achieves a photodegradation efficiency of 96.9 % within 1 h of LED illumination, which is 2.5 and 1.4-fold enhancement compared with bare g-C3N4 and BCN, respectively. Besides, the results of species-trapping trials exhibited that
... Show MoreNanofluids are proven to be efficient agents for wettability alteration in subsurface applications including enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Nanofluids can also be used for CO2-storage applications where the CO2-wet rocks can be rendered strongly water-wet, however no attention has been given to this aspect in the past. Thus in this work we presents contact angle (θ) measurements for CO2/brine/calcite system as function of pressure (0.1 MPa, 5 MPa, 10 MPa, 15 MPa, and 20 MPa), temperature (23 °C, 50 °C and 70 °C), and salinity (0, 5, 10, 15, and 20% NaCl) before and after nano-treatment to address the wettability alteration efficiency. Moreover, the effect of treatment pressure and temperature, treatment fluid concentration (SiO2 wt%) and
... Show MoreWettability of CO2-brine-mineral systems plays a vital role during geological CO2-storage. Residual trapping is lower in deep saline aquifers where the CO2 is migrating through quartz rich reservoirs but CO2 accumulation within a three-way structural closure would have a high storage volume due to higher CO2 saturation in hydrophobic quartz rich reservoir rock. However, such wettability is only poorly understood at realistic subsurface conditions, which are anoxic or reducing. As a consequence of the reducing environment, the geological formations (i.e. deep saline aquifers) contain appreciable concentrations of various organic acids. We thus demonstrate here what impact traces of organic acids exposed to storage rock have on their wettabil
... Show MoreDiyala river is the most important tributaries in Iraq, this river suffering from pollution, therefore, this research aimed to predict organic pollutants that represented by biological oxygen demand BOD, and inorganic pollutants that represented by total dissolved solids TDS for Diyala river in Iraq, the data used in this research were collected for the period from 2011-2016 for the last station in the river known as D17, before the river meeting Tigris river in Baghdad city. Analysis Neural Network ANN was used in order to find the mathematical models, the parameters used to predict BOD were seven parameters EC, Alk, Cl, K, TH, NO3, DO, after removing the less importance parameters. While the parameters that used to predict TDS were fourte
... Show MoreIntroduction: The current study investigated the use of acid-treated rice husks to remove heavy metals and organic pollutants from water containing heavy metals (R2C and Cd2) and organic pollutants (phenol and atrazine). Methods: The adsorption effect of acid-treated rice husks was compared with other adsorbents such as activated carbon, chitosan, and bentonite clay. Result: both acid-treated rice husks and activated carbon were highly efficient materials, and thus, rice husks were established as a cost-effective alternative. It was revealed that acid treatment of rice husks enhanced adsorption capacity by half, and lead removal was nearly doubled. The most effective pH value for optimizing organic pollutants and heavy metals while
... Show MoreDetermination of the concentrations of some inorganic elements (Fe, Co, Cu, Cr, Ni, Pb, Cd) by Flame Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy, Electrothermal Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy, and Inductively Coupled Plasma. and two dangerous organic pollutants (PAH and phenols) by GC and UV in the wastewater of Z.LTF Zafaraniya Leather tanning factory, W.BF Al-Waziriya Battery factory, Ba.WLS Al-Bayaa Wastewater Lifting Station, and some points of Tigris River in Baghdad city taking into consideration the sampling time Varying (two months) and setting the temperature during the drawing of the model. The results of the analysis revealed that the wastewater was contaminated with phenols, PAHs, and metals (Pb, Cd, Cr, Cu) at high rates that exceeded the p
... Show MoreIn this work, the photocatalytic degradation of indigo carmine (IC) using zinc oxide suspension was studied. The effect of influential parameters such as initial indigo carmine concentration and catalyst loading were studied with the effect of Vis irradiation in the presence of reused ZnO was also investigated. The increased in initial dye concentration decreased the photodegradation and the increased catalyst loading increased the degradation percentage and the reused-ZnO exhibits lower photocatalytic activity than the ZnO catalyst. It has been found that the photocatalytic degradation of indigo carmine obeyed the pseudo-first-order kinetic reaction in presence of zinc oxide. This was found from plotting the relationship between ln
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