Hydrothermal synthesis of an efficient and visible light responsive pure and strontium doped zinc oxide nano-hexagonal photocatalysts for photodegradation of Rhodamine B dye

The discharge of various textile effluents into water is provoking numerous ecological issues that have become severe threat to human beings and aquatic lives. The removal of the effluents by photodegradation using appropriate nanoparticles (NPs) is the most promising remediation process. In this study, a facile hydrothermal approach is utilized to fabricate pure ZnO and strontium doped ZnO nanoparticles (Sr-ZnO). The fabricated nanoparticles represented hexagonal morphology and structure which was controlled with the strontium doping. The optical properties of fabricated NPs were also controlled and approached to visible light (2.52 eV) instead of the UV light. The fabricated NPs were employed for photodegradation of Rhodamine B (RHB) dye from polluted wastewater and further effect of factors like light irradiation time, pH, photocatalyst dose, dye concentration etc. was also explored to optimize the parameters. Sr-ZnO photocatalyst represent excellent RHB dye degradation as well as cyclic stability with pseudo first order kinetics. The current study proves the suitability of Sr-ZnO photocatalyst under visible light irradiation for treatment of the organic and dye polluted wastewaters.