The study of photocatalytic activity of zinc oxide / low-density polyethylene coated with silver via hand lay-up technique / Nur Izzatii Othman Basri

Plastic generation is more than 320 million tons annually, and the rate of plastic waste production steadily increases by 3.9% per year. The introduction of plastic waste into water bodies may lead to many adverse environmental impacts as the plastic debris is very stable and generally requires a longer time to degrade. Heterogeneous photocatalysis using zinc oxide (ZnO) semiconductor has recently emerged as an effective way to degrade organic pollutants including dyes. In this study, the Ag was doped into ZnO/LDPE composite and successfully prepared via hand lay-up technique to improve the photocatalytic degradation of MB under visible light irradiation. The Ag-doped ZnO/LDPE were characterized by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Optical microscopy (OM). The FTIR absorption spectra reveal the characteristic peaks and estimated intensity of conjugated carbon while the OM image showed the properties for Ag/ZnO/LDPE composites. The effect of Ag concentration on photocatalytic activity of ZnO/LDPE was also studied. The degradation efficiency of ZnO/LDPE increases as the amount of Ag deposited increases. The optimal amount of Ag deposition was found to be 0.1 mol/l. The percentage degradation and the rate constant of 0.1M Ag/ZnO/LDPE is 90.1% and 0.0038 min-1 respectively, comparable to ZnO/LDPE composite, 97.1%, and 0.0051 min-1.