Facile one pot synthesis of zinc oxide nanorods and statistical evaluation for photocatalytic degradation of a diazo dye

In the present work zinc oxide nanorods (ZNRs) have been synthesized to estimate its photocatalytic degradation potential on an industrially used diazo dye and optimization of the total treatment process has been designed. Response surface methodology (RSM) has been used to model the operational parameters for this photocatalytic degradation. The crystallite size (101 plane) of the synthesized ZNR has been found to be 20.99 nm having a band gap energy of 3.45 eV. At elevated pH, the rate of degradation of the photocatalyst was found to be higher than that of acidic pH. The independent variables of the model are time (9.6–122 min), pH (2–12.2), catalyst dose (0.2–0.4 g/L) and dye concentration (88–512 mg/L). It was seen that the degradation efficiency was significantly affected by the initial dye concentration and the pH, the optimal values of the parameters being a pH of 10.67, an initial concentration of 150 mg/L and ZnO dose of 0.37 g/L, the time taken being 88.52 min. The actual degradation efficiency of the dye reached 96.9% at optimized condition, which is quite close to the predicted value of 98.07%.