Investigation of photocatalytic effect of ZnO–SnO2/nano clinoptilolite system in the photodegradation of aqueous mixture of 4-methylbenzoic acid/2-chloro-5-nitrobenzoic acid

• Good photocatalytic effect of ZnO–SnO2/NCP in degradation of MBA/CNBA aqueous mixture.
• Effect of ZnO–SnO2 ration on the activity of the supported semiconductors.
• Changing the semiconductors’ band gaps by supporting.

The photocatalytic degradation of 4-methylbenzoic acid (MBA) and 2-chloro-5-nitro benzoic acid (CNBA) as aqueous solution mixture was studied using ZnO–SnO2/nano-clinoptilolite under UV irradiation. The clinoptilolite nano-particles (CNP) were obtained via ball-mill method and ion exchanged in Zn2+–Sn4+ aqueous solutions with different concentrations. The ion exchanged samples (Zn(II)–Sn(IV)/CNP) were calcined at 450 °C for 12 h to obtain ZnO–SnO2/CNP catalysts. XRD, DRS, FT-IR and TEM techniques were applied for characterization of samples. The experimental parameters which influenced degradation process were optimized and the optimum values were obtained as: 1 g L−1 of the photocatalyst, pH 5 and 5 mg L−1 of MBA and CNBA in the mixture. The degradation/ mineralization extents were confirmed by COD and HPLC.

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