Synthesis, characterization and application of exfoliated graphite/zirconia nanocomposite electrodes for the photoelectrochemical degradation of organic dye in water

3^rd International Conference and Exhibition on Materials Science & Engineering

October 06-08, 2014 Hilton San Antonio Airport, USA

M O Ama and O A Arotiba

Accepted Abstracts: Material Sci Eng

Abstract :

There is a recent growing interest in the application of nanomaterials in water treatment owing to unique characteristics of materials at nano-scale, which adds value to existing technologies. Advance oxidation processes (AOP) has been shown to be a green approach to water treatment and there is a continuous quest for new materials, nanocomposites and research design concepts to bring this research niche to limelight. As a contribution to AOP, we report the synthesis and application of novel exfoliated graphite - zirconia nanocomposite as photoanodes for the photoelectrochemical degradation of methylene blue dye. In this work, ZrO2 nanoparticle and ZrO2-EG nanocomposite were synthesized by sol-gel method. The materials were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM/EDX), thermogravimetry and differential thermal analysis (TGA-DTA), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area analysis (BET), infrared (IR) spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Applicability of the ZrO2-EG as photoanode material was investigated by the photoelectrochemical degradation of methylene blue as a model organicpollutants in 0.1 M Na2SO4 (pH 7) solution at a current density of 5 mA cm-2 afteroptimizing the ZrO2 loading. The FTIR, XRD and Raman data showed the formation of the nanocomposite, shows the XRD pattern of Nano-crystalline ZrO2and ZrO2-EG nanocomposites. The XRD patterns show that the ZrO2 nanoparticle contains both monoclinic and tetragonal phases. However, the monoclinic phase is the dominant phase and this confirms the results obtain from that of the Raman spectrum of the material.The TEM results showed the formations of nanoparticle.Photoelectrochemical studies with the ZrO2-EG nanocomposite showed a significant decrease in the dye concentration (20 ppm) compared with the EG only. The results indicate that the ZrO2 nanoparticle enhanced the degradation efficiency of the EG substrate. Thus ZrO2-EG composite can be used for the photoelectrochemical oxidation of organic pollutants, especially organic dyes.