Highly porous, hierarchical peanut-like Ecandrewsite binary metal oxide nanostructures for the high-efficiency detoxification of organic dyes from wastewater

Abstract

A facile and simple strategy was developed to fabricate Ecandrewsite-type nanostructured catalysts using wet chemical synthesis. The proposed catalyst shows promising results in photo/electro catalysts to purify water-based organic dye impurities, such as methylene blue (MB) and Congo red (CR). The morphological evolution of the nanocatalysts was performed using the surface-active agent Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB). X-ray diffraction patterns confirm that the fabricated materials belong to the ZnTiO3 with high purity. The micrographs of all the sample were highly uniform with respect to the CTAB ratio. ZnTiO3-2 nanostructured material degraded MB and CR with 96% efficiency in 90 min under UV–vis light illumination. In addition, as-prepared ZnTiO3-2 catalyst was shown to be very efficient in breaking down MB and CR, with degradation rates of 91% and 96% in 36 h, respectively.