Nanostructured zirconium tungstate and its bionanocomposite with chitosan: Wet peroxide photocatalytic degradation of dyes

In this study nanoclusters of zirconium tungstate (ZrW) were synthesized hydrothermally in a stainless steel autoclave and its bionanocomposite with chitosan (CZrW) was fabricated. The synthesized ZrW and CZrW were characterized by UV, FTIR, XRD, TEM Raman and TGA techniques and further explored for their catalytic potential in degradation of dyes. ZrW and CZrW exhibited high photocatalytic activity for degradation of cationic and anionic dyes as well as their binary mixture under ambient conditions using H2O2. It was observed that CZrW was more effective in degradation of dyes as compared to ZrW while ZrW was more efficient in mineralization. The high catalytic activity can be attributed to the possible formation of surface peroxy complexes by ZrW and CZrW. Furthermore the green catalyst could be reused for degradation of dyes for three cycles without significant loss in efficiency. This study opens new avenues in designing CZrW based green catalysts for degradation of dyes. (C) 2017 Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.