Synthesis and characterization of Pb2SiO4 nanostructure: study of photo-catalytic behavior of reactive Red198 and reactive Orange16 dyes as pollutants

Pure Pb2SiO4 nanostructures were fabricated using amines as alkaline agents by sol–gel method and characterized via X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transformed infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The average crystallite size of the products in presence and absence of the alkaline agent in the reaction was calculated about 18 and 34 nm by XRD technique, respectively. The type of alkaline agent was evaluated to achieve the optimized nanostructure. The results showed that the ethylenediamine as an alkaline agent has a better performance than the other alkaline agents (ammonia, triethylenetetramine, and tetraethylenepentamine). Optical property of optimized nanostructure was studied by diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) and its band gap was estimated to about 3.3 eV. It is the first time that photo-catalytic behavior of Pb2SiO4 nanostructure was investigated. The photo-catalytic performance of optimized Pb2SiO4 nanostructure was evaluated in the presence of various concentrations of Reactive Red198 and Reactive Orange16 dyes. The degradation percentage of dyes in various concentrations (5, 7, and 9 ppm) was obtained for Reactive Red198 and Reactive Orange16 about 100, 57, and 52% and also 100, 52, and 42% after 75 min ultraviolet irradiation, respectively. At 5 ppm concentration, Reactive Orange16 pollutant destruction was faster than Reactive Red198.