Speaker
Level for award<br> (Hons, MSc, <br> PhD, N/A)?
MSc
Apply to be<br> considered for a student <br> award (Yes / No)?
Yes
Would you like to <br> submit a short paper <br> for the Conference <br> Proceedings (Yes / No)?
No
Please indicate whether<br>this abstract may be<br>published online<br>(Yes / No)
No
Abstract content <br> (Max 300 words)<br><a href="http://events.saip.org.za/getFile.py/access?resId=0&materialId=0&confId=34" target="_blank">Formatting &<br>Special chars</a>
Colored dye waste waters are released in huge quantities to the environment and cause negative effects to living organisms. As a result, a technique called advanced oxidation processes has been developed to effectively degrade such pollutants. In this study, rod-like and spherical ZnO nano-particles are synthesized and their photocatalytic activity is investigated. Photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B was carried out by irradiating an aqueous solution of the dye containing ZnO using solar light. The effect of dye concentration (5 – 50 mg\L) and pH (2 – 12) are reported. Degradation was followed by measuring absorbance of aliquots spectrophotometrically. Experimental results indicated that an increase in catalyst amount or decrease in dye concentration resulted to high degradation rate. A pH study showed that the dyes were degraded efficiently under neutral and basic conditions and a significant decrease in the degradation efficiency was seen under acidic conditions, with maximum degradation observed at pH 8.
Main supervisor (name and email)<br>and his / her institution
Dr Zikhona Tetana (zikhona.tetana@wits.ac.za), University of the Witwatersrand
