Photocatalysis of the mixture
of rhodamine-B and Cr (VI) by activated natural zeolite (ZA) loaded TiO2
and ZnO semiconductor materials has been carried out. This study aims to
determine the ability of ZA-TiO2/ZnO photocatalyst in degradation of
rhodamine-B and reduction of Cr (VI) simultaneously under the visible light
irradiation. The photocatalyst is synthesized using the ceramic method. The photocatalyst
is analyzed to determine the success of the synthesis process, namely functional
groups analyzed by infrared spectrophotometer (FTIR) and surface acidity by
acid-alkalimetry titration method. The analysis result of the functional groups
of ZA-TiO2/ZnO photocatalyst showed that the specific peaks of Ti-O appeared
at wavenumbers of 2368.69 cm-1 and 678.11 cm-1 as well as
the peaks of Zn-O appeared at 884.4 cm-1, 501.01 cm-1 and
438.46 cm-1. The peaks of O-Si-O and O-Al-O bonds in the
aluminosilicate of zeolite framework were appeared at 788.91 cm-1 and
1055.1 cm-1. In addition, the active sites tend to be acidic with
the number of active sites was 16.9515 x 1020 sites/g. The
photocatalytic process showed that the highest value of degradation of
rhodamine-B and reduction of Cr (VI) simultaneously at pH 3, with an
irradiation time of 10 minutes and a photocatalyst mass of 300 mg, which
reached 99.91% and 99.92%, respectively. The
photocatalyst activity of ZA-TiO2/ZnO for
rhodamine-B degradation and Cr (VI) reduction simultaneously under the visible
light irradiation, so that it is important considered.
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