Photocatalytic degradation of basic blue 9 by CoS nanoparticles supported on AlMCM-41 material as a catalyst

In this investigation photocatalytic degradation of basic blue 9 or methylene blue (MB) as color pollutants was studied. Cobalt sulfide was supported on AlMCM-41 material using ion-exchange method. The results show that CoS/AlMCM-41 is an active photocatalyst. The catalyst is characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) UV-vis diffused reflectance spectra (UV-vis DRS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques. The maximum effect of photodegradation was observed at 7 wt% CoS/AlMCM-41. Pseudo-first order reaction with k = 0.032 was observed for the photocatalytic degradation reaction. The effect of some parameters such as pH, amount or photocatalyst and initial concentration of dye were also examined. The effect of dosage of photocatalyst was studied in the range 0.04-1.2 g/L It was seen that 0.8 g/L of photocatalyst is an optimum value for the dosage of photocatalyst. In the best conditions, the degradation efficiency was obtained 0.32 ppm for MB dye. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.