The effect of orange peel addition and orange peel-CTAB modification on the ability of ZnO to degrade methylene blue under UV irradiation

In the industry of textile, dyes can cause major environmental problems due to azo compounds contained as difficultly degraded material. To remove the synthetic dyes it is used Photodegradation method because of cheap and environmentally friendly. This research purposed to determine the influence of orange peel (OrPl) and OrPl - Cetyltrimethylammonium Bromide (CTAB) addition on photocatalyst semiconductor properties of ZnO and to degrade the Methylene Blue (MB). ZnO, ZnO/ OrPl, and ZnO/ OrPl -CTAB materials were characterized using FTIR, XRD, BET, SEM EDX and DR-UV. Based on FTIR results ZnO peaks were formed directly during the decomposition of zinc acetate. In addition, the absence of typical CTAB absorption indicates a complete calcination process. The characterization using XRD showed that there was no damage caused by the addition of OrPl -CTAB to ZnO. ZnO/ OrPl and ZnO/ OrPl -CTAB crystal structure formed was wurtzite with a hexagonal shape. The characterization using BET showed that OrPl -CTAB addition caused a largest surface area and pore size compared to ZnO and ZnO-OrPl. The results of characterization using DR-UV showed that the narrowest band gap energy was ZnO/ OrPl -CTAB 1:25 is 3.153 eV showing smaller band gap energy than ZnO. Characterization of DR-UV revealed that the smallest energy gap of the band was ZnO/OrPl -CTAB 1:25 at 3.153 eV, indicating a smaller band gap energy than ZnO. The characterization results showed that the material with the best character was ZnO/ OrPl -CTAB with the addition of 25 mL(1:25) Zn Acetate. In addition, ZnO/ OrPl -CTAB material was better than ZnO and ZnO/ OrPl in degrading MB. In the without UV irradiation method, the optimum conditions were obtained at 110th minutes for ZnO/ OrPl -CTAB to degrade MB by 78%, while ZnO/ OrPl and ZnO were only able to degrade by 71% and 46%, respectively at 100th minutes. Meanwhile, under UV irradiation method, the optimum condition were obtained for ZnO/ OrPl -CTAB to degrade MB at 110 minutes by 94% while ZnO/ OrPl was only 88% and ZnO 83% at 100 minutes.