Visible light assisted photocatalytic degradation of crystal violet, bromophenol blue and eosin Y dyes using AgBr-ZnO nanocomposite

ZnO and AgBr-ZnO Nanocomposite were successfully prepared via simple precipitation method. The samples were was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and high resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM). The photocatalytic activity of AgBr-ZnO was investigated for the degradation of three dyes; crystal violet (CV), bromophenol blue (BPB), and Eosin Y (EY) dyes, under visible light irradiation. It achieved degradation% of 86.93%, 89.3%, and 93.3% for CV, BPB and EY, respectively, in 50 min. The effect of operational parameters such as photocatalyst dose, dyes concentration, pH, presence of inorganic salts (NaCl, Na2CO3 and Na2SO4), H2O2, and the lamp power on photo mineralization was studied. The nanocomposite exhibit higher activity relative to pure ZnO. This excellent photocatalytic performance may be attributed to the efficient separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs compared to pure ZnO.