Tiara Anugrah Ria, Suriati Eka Putri, Adhyllah Sumayyah Ariesty, Andi Resky Susilawati, Hasri, Satria Putra Jaya Negara, Abd Rahman, Nur Ahmad, Heryanto Heryanto
A new innovation of the utilization of South Sulawesi natural montmorillonite (MMT) as a support catalyst of ZnO for dyes photodegradation has been carried out. ZnO/MMT photocatalyst was synthesized by wet impregnation method which was then analyzed for metal oxide content, surface morphology, functional groups, and surface area. The synthesized ZnO/MMT photocatalyst was applied to the photodegradation process of methylene blue (MB) and methyl orange (MO) dyes. The results showed that the ZnO phase was a hexagonal wurtzite phase which was confirmed by the results of functional group analysis. The synthesized photocatalyst had a surface area of 131.55 m2/g with a pore size of 4.61 nm. The highest percentage of degradation occurred at pH 5 with a photocatalyst mass of 0.2 g for MB and MO dyes, while the irradiation time was 150 min for MB and 180 min for MO, with the percentage of degradation of 99.35 ± 0.22 % and 91.17 ± 1.79 %, respectively. Based on the effectiveness test, the ZnO/MMT photocatalyst showed extraordinary performance with an efficiency up to four cycles against MB and three cycles against MO. Thus, the ZnO/MMT photocatalyst is potential to be used for dyes degradation in textile industry waste. © 2025 The Authors
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science, Universitas Negeri Makassar, South Sulawesi, Makassar, Indonesia; Department of Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science, Universitas Negeri Makassar, South Sulawesi, Makassar, Indonesia; Department of Chemistry, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Sriwijaya University, South Sumatera, Indonesia; Department of Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science, Hasanuddin University, South Sulawesi, Makassar, Indonesia
