Study the Effect of ZnO Concentrations on The Photocatalytic Activity of TiO2/Cement Nanocomposites

In this paper, ZnO/TiO2/cement nanocomposites were fabricated by a simple casting method with different concentrations of ZnO (0, 0.4, 0.6, and 0.8 wt.%) and of TiO2 (0.8, 0.4, 0.2, and 0 wt.%). The aim of this study was to understand the effect of dye concentration (5 and 10 ppm) on the photo-catalytic activity of TiO2/ZnO/cement nanocomposite. The samples of the synthesized nanocomposites were characterized by the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) technique. The observed photocatalytic efficiency of the nanocomposites was investigated by decomposing the dye methylene blue in an aqueous solution under sunlight irradiation. (FE-SEM) image of the TiO2/cement nanocomposite with 0.8 wt.% content was examined. It is clear that the TiO2 nanoparticles were well attached to cement particles and they covered the cement surface the ZnO photocatalytic activity is apparently better than that of TiO2 because ZnO exhibits greater electron mobility. According to the slope, the value of the k constant = 0.0721 min^-1 for ZnO/TiO2/cement nanocomposites (0.8 wt.%) at MB solution with 5ppm concentration. The contact angle of TiO2/cement (0.8 wt.%) was 27.11 because the cement is hydrophilic surface. However, the contact angle increased when ZnO added to TiO2/cement.