Ali Sardar, Aljarrah Mohannad T, Al-Otoom Awni, Abdelaziz Noor
College of Engineering and Technology, University of Doha for Science and Technology, 24449 Doha, Qatar.
ACS Omega. 2025 Apr 15;10(16):16156-16168. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.4c09879. eCollection 2025 Apr 29.
Contamination of water resources with organic pollutants is a serious environmental problem. Degradation of organic pollutants using photocatalytic materials is a promising method of wastewater treatment. In this work, we report on the fabrication of novel 3D printed (3DP) ZnO/Clay materials to be used as efficient photocatalysts for the degradation of methylene blue (MB). Extrusion-based direct ink writing technology was utilized to print the scaffolds. The synthesized scaffolds were thoroughly characterized using the analytical techniques of Brunauer-Emmett-Teller, Fourier transform infrared, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The photocatalytic activity was studied by measuring the photodegradation of MB under simulated solar radiation. The synergistic effects of adsorption and photodegradation resulted in a 100% removal efficiency of MB within 40 min by the 3DP catalyst. The reported catalysts require minimum time for MB degradation with high pollutants removal efficiency, and therefore, no further treatment is required after usage for the catalytic experiment. The 3DP catalysts also demonstrated excellent stability during the reusability test, where performance of the catalysts was assessed for the degradation of MB using several consecutive cycles without any treatment or regeneration. This work can provide a way for preparing efficient and environmentally friendly photocatalysts.
水资源受到有机污染物的污染是一个严重的环境问题。使用光催化材料降解有机污染物是一种很有前景的废水处理方法。在这项工作中，我们报告了新型3D打印（3DP）ZnO/粘土材料的制备，该材料用作降解亚甲基蓝（MB）的高效光催化剂。采用基于挤出的直接墨水书写技术来打印支架。使用布鲁诺尔-埃米特-泰勒、傅里叶变换红外光谱、X射线衍射、扫描电子显微镜和能量色散X射线光谱等分析技术对合成的支架进行了全面表征。通过测量模拟太阳辐射下MB的光降解来研究光催化活性。吸附和光降解的协同作用使3DP催化剂在40分钟内实现了MB 100%的去除效率。所报道的催化剂降解MB所需时间最短且污染物去除效率高，因此，催化实验使用后无需进一步处理。3DP催化剂在可重复使用性测试中也表现出优异的稳定性，在该测试中，使用几个连续循环评估催化剂对MB的降解性能，无需任何处理或再生。这项工作可为制备高效且环保的光催化剂提供一种方法。
