Photoremoval of Ethylene Vinyl Alcohol and Acrylonitrile Microplastics with S and VO2 Containing Cellulose taken from Paper Industry Wastes - Abstract
Microplastics becomes an important threat to environment and to humans due to negative impacts on health. Sunlight is known to be the natural energy source that degrades plastic waste at a very slow rate. Based on sunlight, the photocatalytic degradation process could significantly accelerate the degradation efficiency of pollutants. In this study in order to photodegrade two microplastics namely ethylene vinyl alcohol and acrylonitrile present in some paper industry wastes cellulose/S/VO2 nanocomposite was generated under laboratory conditions. The effects of some operational conditions (time, ethylene vinyl alcohol and acrylonitrile concentrations, cellulose/S/VO2 nanocomposite concentration) and environmental conditions (pH, temperature, sun ligth power) on the photodegradation of ethylene vinyl alcohol and acrylonitrile microplastic were investigated. For maximal photodegradation yields of ethylene vinyl alcohol (99%) and acrylonitrile (97%) microplastics the operational conditions should be as follows: 1,9 mg/l cellulose /S/ VO2 nanocomposite, 700 mg/l microplastic concentration and 40 min photodegradation time. For environmental conditions the matrix should be 10, 50 oC and 60 W/m2 for pH, temperature and sun ligth intensity. XRD results showed that S exhibited S8 orthorhombic structure while VO2 exhibited a monoclinic structure with crystal properties. FT-IR results indicated that in the Cellulose/ S-VO2 nanocomposite S doped to the VO2 surface. The sligthly weak band at 1709 cm?1 on cellulose could be defined by OH groups attachements. XPS analysis results illustrated that The peak at 533.4 eV exhibits lattice O for VO2 wiaximal hile maximal peak at 529.2 eV shows the C–OH and C–O–C bounds in Cellulose. The reusability studies exhibited perfect result. After 90 times utilization of the cellulose /S/VO2 nanocomposite the ethylene vinyl alcohol and acrylonitrile microplastic photodegradation yields decreased sligtly to 96% and 94%, respectively