Photocatalytic degradation of hazardous Ponceau-S dye from industrial wastewater using nanosized niobium pentoxide with carbon

The present communication deals with the development of a low cost method for the removal of color from textile dyeing and printing wastewater by using nanosized semiconductor Nb2O5 as photocatalyst. Photocatalytic degradation studies were carried out for water soluble hazardous Ponceau-S dye in Nb2O5 aqueous suspension along with commercial activated carbon (CAC) as co-adsorbent. Different parameters like catalyst concentration, substrate concentration, pH, and contact time have been studied. It was observed that photocatalytic degradation by nanosized Nb2O5 along with CAC was a more effective, economic and faster mode of removing Ponceau-S dye from aqueous solutions. The optimum conditions for the degradation of the dye were initial concentration 40 ppm, pH 8 and catalyst concentration 5 g I-1 with CAC 1 g l(-1). The adsorption capacity was found to be 41.05 mg/g. The SEM and XRD studies were carried for morphological feature characteristics of Nb2O5/C semiconductor materials. Besides the above kinetics and isotherm studies have also been carried out. Crown Copyright (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.