Catalytic pyrolysis of the Eupatorium adenophorum to prepare photocatalyst-adsorbent composite for dye removal

Song Cheng, Wenhai Hu, C. Srinivasakannan, Hongying Xia, Libo Zhang, Jinhui Peng, Junwen Zhou, Guo Lin, Qi Zhang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

22 Scopus citations

Abstract

Eupatorium adenophorum, a kind of pernicious weed, is used to produce a photocatalyst-adsorbent composite, consisting of ZnO[sbnd]Fe 3 O 4 particles on the surface of activated carbon, and bio-gas via catalytic pyrolysis. The photocatalyst-adsorbent composite was characterized by several characterization methods. The results show that the photocatalyst-adsorbent composite possesses adsorptive, photocatalytic degradative and magnetic properties. Methylene blue, a kind of dye, is used to evaluate the adsorption and photocatalytic degradation performance of photocatalyst-adsorbent composite. The maximum amount of methylene blue adsorption in photocatalyst-adsorbent composite was as high as 330.03 mg/g based on the adsorption experiment in dark conditions. The photocatalyst-adsorbent composite had good degradation performance with methylene blue, which was found to be 20.78% more efficient than the ZnO catalyst and 205% more efficient than the adsorption under ultra violet light irradiation. Photocatalyst-adsorbent composite could be conveniently separated from the aqueous solution by using an external magnetic field. The bio-gas was collected from the pyrolysis process, which mainly consisted of H 2 and CO. The production cost of the photocatalyst-adsorbent composite is US$ 1,361/t based on the preliminary economic analysis.

Original languageBritish English
Pages (from-to)710-721
Number of pages12
JournalJournal of Cleaner Production
Volume222
DOIs
StatePublished - 10 Jun 2019

Keywords

  • Adsorption
  • Dye removal
  • Photocatalyst-adsorbent composite
  • Photocatalytic degradation
  • Pyrolysis

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