Development of Co-Al LDH/GO composite photocatalyst for enhanced degradation of textile pollutant under visible light irradiation

Industrial wastewater contamination is a severe global issue due to the effective dosage of textile dyes that are directly exiting from the textile industries either without treatment or mild treatment. These dyes contain many organic pollutants severely damaging human beings along with aquatic environment and animals. Methylene blue (MB) dye is a carcinogenic that can cause acute diseases. In this regard, Photocatalysis proves an alluring approach because to its fascinating characteristics over ordinary technologies particularly economical and simple methodology. Layered double hydroxide (LDH) as a photocatalysts are exhibiting their promising performance for the treatment of organic pollutant in industrial wastewater. The present research displays a simple and facile co-precipitation method for the synthesis pure Co-Al LDH and its composite with graphene oxide (GO). A series of composites of GO and Co-Al layered doubled hydroxide with varied content of GO is successfully synthesized that enhanced the photocatalytic performance of Co-Al LDH in terms of MB dye degradation. With the optimized sample, 0.5 g GO loading onto Co-Al LDH termed as 0.5-CAL/GO, the MB dye degradation of 71 % was achieved under white LED light (10 W) irradiation. Synthesized photocatalysts are characterized by several analytical techniques such as (XRD, SEM, FTIR, Raman, UV Visible DRS, Photoluminescence spectroscopy). This research presents the flexible strategy for effective removal of MB dye simulated wastewater, acting as a textile industry wastewater employing a visible light active photocatalyst under white light (LED) illumination.