Advances of the highly efficient and stable visible light active photocatalyst Zr(iv)–phthalate coordination polymer for the degradation of organic contaminants in water

Abstract

This work presents the restoration of the Zr–phthalate coordination polymer (Zr–Ph CP) via valuable application in photocatalysis. Zr–Ph CP was facilely synthesized using a soft hydrothermal method at 70 °C, and was characterized utilizing FTIR, Raman Spectrosopy, XPS, PXRD, SEM/EDX, BET, and a hyperspectral camera. Assessment of its photocatalytic degradation potential was performed against two different dyes, the cationic methylene blue (MB) and the anionic methyl orange (MO), as frequent models of organic contaminants, under properly selected mild visible illumination (9 W) where the bandgap energy (E_g) was determined to be 2.72 eV. Effects of different initial pH values and different dyes’ initial concentrations were covered. Photocatalytic degradation studies showed that Zr–Ph CP effectively degraded both dyes for initial pH 7 within about 40–60 minutes. Degradation rate constants were calculated as 0.17 and 0.13 min⁻¹ for MB and MO, respectively. Generally, both direct and indirect mechanisms share in the degradation, where adsorption has shown an important role. The repeated use of Zr–Ph CP does not significantly affect its photocatalytic performance suggesting high water stability.