Highly reactive lanthanum doped zinc oxide nanofiber photocatalyst for effective decontamination of methyl parathion

Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofibers were produced using electrospinning technique and La doped ZnO Nanorods was immobilized to enhance photo catalytic activity for the decontamination of organo-phosphorous compounds. La doped ZnO nanorods were synthesized by hydrothermal method and characterized by FTIR, XRD, SEM, TEM, TGA and BET studies. The photo catalytic decontamination studies were carried out to evaluate the catalytic activity using methyl parathion under UV irradiation method and 99.6% removal efficiency was obtained within 1 h reaction time. The secondary compounds were analysed using UV-VIS Spectrophotometer and confirmed by HPLC and GC-MS.