Sono-catalytic and photo-catalytic degradation of Congo red from aqueous solutions by synthesized Zirconium oxide semiconductor nanoparticles based on montmorillonite nano-clay

Zirconium oxide/clay (ZrO2/clay), nano-composite catalyst was prepared by sol gel method for photo- catalytic and sono- catalytic degradation of Congo red (CR) in aqueous solution. The morphology of prepared catalysts were characterized by field emission scanning electronic microscopy (FESEM), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The XRD patterns confirm that synthesized catalysts had highly crystalline nature. The calcination temperature of 400°C and aging time of 48 h for preparation of catalyst was found to be the optimum condition which gave highest degradation efficiency of CR after 30 min ultrasonic and UV irradiation. The activity tests indicated that photo-degradation and sono-degradation efficiency for ZrO2/clay is higher than ZrO2 obviously pointing to synergistic effect of all nanoparticles. Almost complete degradation of CR (above 98%) upon 90 min of ultrasonic and UV irradiation. Keywords: Photocatalyst, Sol-gel. Nano- , Ultrasonic, clay