Abstract
Recycling sustainable industrial solid waste, such as silica fume, has recently become an important issue. Due to its large amounts, the exploitation of industrial solid waste is a great urgent issue and optimal solution for environmental and water resources protection. Consequently, this manuscript aims to synthesis a novel, low-cost, and efficient photocatalyst to degrade crystal violet and produce crystal violet-free water. The proposed photocatalyst was prepared by combining ZnO nanosheets with silica fume-derived SiO2 to get a novel, mesoporous ZnO@silica fume-derived SiO2 photocatalyst. The influence of pH, time, dose, temperature and initial CV concentration were systematically investigated. The results showed that ZnO@silica fume-derived SiO2 actively removed >98% of the crystal violet dye from synthetic wastewater of 10 ppm concentration within 1 h, at pH 9.0 with a first-order kinetic model. The reaction mechanism between photocatalysts and crystal violet was also discussed. The prepared photocatalyst displayed high stability after five reuse cycles, leading to a decrease in the overall cost of the wastewater remediation process. The as-synthesized ZnO@silica fume-derived SiO2 nanocomposite shows promising potential for ecological safety, demonstrating that ZnO@silica fume-derived SiO2 has a large removal performance.
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•A novel mesoporous ZnO@silica fume-derived SiO2 was synthesized.•ZnO@SF-derived SiO2 nanocomposite was used for CV-photodegradation.•The energy bandgap of prepared nanocomposite and ZnO was determined.•The spent photocatalyst was successfully recycled several times.•Removal of CV from real wastewater was achieved.