International Journal of Environmental Science and Development

Abstract—NiO and NiO-NiFe₂O₄, composite had been synthesized by the coprecipitation method and characterized using XRD, FTIR, UV-DRS, and SEM-EDS. The photocatalytic degradation performances of the photocatalyst were investigated using visible irradiation, in which Congo red dye was used as a model. The photocatalytic degradation process was assessed through three variables: the pH of the solution, Congo red dye initial concentration, and irradiation time. The removal efficiency of photocatalytic degradation of 98.45% was achieved using NiO-NiFe₂O₄ at a pH of 6, an initial concentration of the dye of 100 mg/L, and an irradiation time of 120 minutes was higher than that obtained using NiO, which was 78.5%. Pseudo-first-order was suitable to describe the kinetics of photocatalytic degradation of Congo red, with values of k = 0.0114 min^-1 and t_1/2 = 60.789 min using NiO as the photocatalyst, and with k =0.0225 min^-1 and t_1/2 = 30.8 min using NiO-NiFe₂O₄. The removal efficiency of the NiO-NiFe₂O₄ composite of consecutive reuse three-time was 98.45, 97.13, and 96.21%, while NiO was 78.30, 77.12, and 75.32%. Therefore, NiO-NiFe₂O₄ was considered more effective in reducing Congo red concentration than NiO.

Index Terms—NiO, NiO-NiFe₂O₄ composite, photocatalytic, degradation, Congo red.

Poedji Loekitowati Hariani, Muhammad Said, and Addy Rachmat are with the Department of Chemistry, Universitas Sriwijaya, Ogan Ilir 30662, Indonesia (e-mail: puji_lukitowati@mipa.unsri.ac.id, saidusman2011@gmail.com, addy.tea@gmail.com).
Ra Hoetary Tirta Amallia is with Doctoral Program of Environmental Science, Universitas Sriwijaya, Ogan Ilir 30662, Indonesia (e-mail: hoetary_uin@radenpatah.ac.id).
Astri Nurmansyah is with Magister Program of Chemistry, Universitas Sriwijaya, Indonesia (e-mail: astrinurmayansih19@gmail.com).

[PDF]

Cite: Poedji Loekitowati Hariani, Muhammad Said, Addy Rachmat, Astri Nurmansyah, and Ra Hoetary Tirta Amallia, "Comparison of the Photocatalytic Degradation of Congo Red Dye Using NiO and NiO-NiFe₂O₄ Composite," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 57-62, 2022.

Copyright © 2022 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).