Morphological Influence of ZnO Nanostructures and Cu Loading for the Photodegradation of Methyl Parathion

Abstract

Pesticides accumulation in ecosystem becomes major problem and causing health problems. The photocatalytic degradation of organophosphorus pesticide methyl parathion is investigated by different shape of ZnO and Cu loaded ZnO nanoparticles. Zinc oxide is a promising photocatalyst for degradation of pesticides and dyes because of its high stability, low cost and low toxicity. ZnO nanorods gives better activity then other shape because of it elongated morphology and Cu loading enhances its activity. The resulting materials were characterized by XRD, SEM, EDS and diffuse spectroscopy. Moreover, among the different shapes nanocomposites nanorods exhibited the highest catalytic activity for the photooxidation for methyl parathion (98%) into CO2 and H2O.