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Effects of Temperature on Zinc Oxide Mediated Photocatalytic System for
Decontamination of Water
Siti Nurathirah Farhana Binti Nazri
Supervisor: Dr. Wan Rafizah Wan Abdullah
Bachelor of Technology (Environment)
School of Ocean Engineering
Universiti Malaysia Terengganu
Occurrence of persistence organic compounds in industrial effluents has emerged as
a crucial problem to wastewater treatment plants. Presently, photocatalytic treatment
using ZnO photocatalyst is considered a promising method to solve the problem, but
its efficiency relies on selection of suitable range of operating conditions. Therefore,
this study was conducted to assess the temperature dependence of photocatalytic
efficiency of ZnO in temperature range of 20 to 60 o C. Photodegradation of 10 mg/L
of methylene blue was performed under UV-light irradiation in the presence of 1 g/L
of ZnO for 120 minutes. In addition, the simultaneous influence of temperature and
other operational conditions including salinity (1 – 35 g/L NaCl) were thoroughly
investigated. The findings showed that photocatalytic efficiency of ZnO depended on
temperature. The optimum operational condition for the photodecomposition of MB
using ZnO catalyst was found to be at high temperature (60 ͦC) and high salinity (35
g/L NaCl).
94 | U M T U N D E R G R A D U A T E R E S E A R C H D A Y 2019