Photocatalyzed removal of cationic dye from textile wastewater

In this work, the degradation of methyl violet dye from an aqueous solution was performed using photocatalyzed reactions. For this purpose, ZnO was used as a photocatalyst, and all reactions were carried out under the influence of a lamp that imitates solar radiation. The influence of the photocatalyst concentration on the efficiency of the process, as well as the distance of the UV lamp from the solution, was examined. The kinetics of degradation were monitored by UV-Vis spectrophotometry. The decrease in the concentration of the cationic dye was monitored at a wavelength of 580 nm. The percentage of dye degradation was over 90% after 2 h of reaction. Preliminary tests have shown that the proposed system has potential application in certain industrial wastewater treatment systems.