Abstract

One of the best ways to reduce the contamination of water caused by the colored dyes used in the textile industries is photocatalytic treatment. The theme of the present investigation is photocatalytic degradation of organic dyes such as methylene blue and methyl orange in the presence of a catalyst like ZnO under UV light irradiation. The nanosized ZnO is prepared by three different methods namely sol-gel, precipitation and thermal decomposition method. The synthesized samples are calcinated at uniform temperature and are characterized by different techniques. Further, the efficiency of the catalyst and their photocatalytic mechanism are discussed in detail. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.