article · Materials
Water contamination poses a significant challenge worldwide, driving interest in effective remediation materials. Researchers developed a composite photocatalyst combining nickel ferrite with activated carbon derived from willow catkins, an agricultural waste material. The activated carbon was prepared through chemical modification and combined with varying loadings of nickel ferrite nanoparticles using a single-step hydrothermal process. Structural, chemical, and surface analyses confirmed the composition and textural properties of the resulting composites. When evaluated for the breakdown of rhodamine B dye under simulated sunlight, the performance varied according to reaction time, catalyst mass, and nickel ferrite content. The composite containing forty-five weight per cent nickel ferrite achieved a 99.7 per cent degradation of the dye within ninety minutes. The tested composites also demonstrated reliable reusability, presenting an effective approach for degrading organic pollutants in water treatment applications.
Clean water shortages require low-cost, sustainable treatment systems capable of destroying toxic industrial contaminants such as synthetic dyes. By converting agricultural waste into activated carbon and pairing it with a reusable magnetic photocatalyst, this approach offers an environmentally friendly route to purifying contaminated water using simulated solar energy.
This technology could enable more sustainable wastewater treatment systems for textile manufacturers and industrial effluent processors seeking to remove synthetic dyes. The composite offers the advantage of being reusable and derived from low-cost agricultural residues. Because the work is currently confined to laboratory-scale testing on synthetic dye solutions under simulated sunlight, it remains in the early stages of research, requiring testing on complex real-world effluents before commercial deployment.
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Recently, efficient decontamination of water and wastewater have attracted global attention due to the deficiency in the world's water sources. Herein, activated carbon (AC) derived from willow catkins (WCs) was successfully synthesized using chemical modification techniques and then loaded with different weight percentages of nickel ferrite nanocomposites (10, 25, 45, and 65 wt.%) via a one-step hydrothermal method. The morphology, chemical structure, and surface composition of the nickel ferrite supported on AC (NFAC) were analyzed by XRD, TEM, SEM, EDX, and FTIR spectroscopy. Textural properties (surface area) of the nanocomposites (NC) were investigated by using Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis. The prepared nanocomposites were tested on different dyes to form a system for water remediation and make this photocatalyst convenient to recycle. The photodegradation of rhodamine B dye was investigated by adjusting a variety of factors such as the amount of nickel in nanocomposites, the weight of photocatalyst, reaction time, and photocatalyst reusability. The 45NFAC photocatalyst exhibits excellent degradation efficiency toward rhodamine B dye, reaching 99.7% in 90 min under a simulated source of sunlight. To summarize, NFAC nanocomposites are potential photocatalysts for water environmental remediation because they are effective, reliable, and reusable.
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DOI: 10.3390/ma16062170
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