Effect of Zeta Potential on Chitosan Doped Cerium Oxide in the Decolorization of Cationic Dye under Visible Light Irradiation

In recent days, semiconductor photocatalysis for the advanced water treatment of organic contaminants has been considered as an efficient and attractive technology. This papers deals with the synthesis, characterization, and study of zeta potential effect of chitosan doped cerium oxide beads (CCB) for the photocatalytic decolorization of cationic dye, methylene blue (MB) under visible light irradiation. The CCB were successfully synthesized through sol-gel method and further characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The SEM images show that cerium oxide nanoparticles were profoundly embedded on the chitosan material. CCB exhibited higher photocatalytic activity with 97.75 % after 210 min of decolorization. Decolorization of MB using CCB was analyzed at different intervals of time under visible light irradiation using UV-Vis spectroscopy. The rate of MB decolorization under visible light irradiation follows the pseudo first order kinetics using Langmuir-Hinshelwood model. Zeta potential of CCB were analyzed for aqueous solutions of chitosan dispersion over a pH range of 2 to 8.