Nowadays, water pollution is a major concern to the globe. For this reason, various research works has been done to access pure water thereby minimizing the effect of pollutants. In this work, the cobalt doped ZnO (Co-doped ZnO) via the accumulation of cobalt ion onto Eichhornia crassipes plant tissue for different days and combined with zinc precursor was synthesized. The resulting catalyst powder samples were characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), and Ultraviolet–vis (UV–vis) spectroscopy, and microwave plasma atomic emission spectrometer (MP-AES). The catalysts were also tested for the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) in the presence of H2O2 under visible light irradiation. The best catalytic activity was gained by the 8th-days accumulation of cobalt ion onto the Eichhornia crassipes plant tissue and 99.6% of the dye was degraded within 45 min. However, 69.6, 65.7, 73.6, and 94.8% of MB dye was degraded by 1, 2, 4, and 6 days accumulations. Hence, removal of toxic heavy metal by using Eichhornia crassipes plant and recycling in the wastewater treatment gain is highly appreciated. Moreover, the Co-doped ZnO photocatalysts could enhance the photocatalytic activities due to suppressing of the electron and hole recombination and the porosity of the catalysts resulted from the Eichhornia crassipes plant after calcination.

No abstract

No abstract

In recent years, partial replacement of cement with bagasse ash has been given attention for construction application due to its pozzolanic characteristics. Sugarcane bagasse ash and fine bagasse particles are abundant byproducts of the sugar industries and are disposed of in landfills. Our study presents the effect of burning bagasse at different temperatures (300 °C and 600 °C) on the compressive strength and physical properties of bagasse ash-blended mortars. Experimental results have revealed that bagasse produced more amorphous silica with very low carbon contents when it was burned at 600 °C/2 h. The compressive strength of mortar was improved when 5% bagasse ash replaced ordinary portland cement (OPC) at early curing ages. The addition of 10% bagasse ash cement also increased the compressive strength of mortars at 14 and 28 days of curing. However, none of the bagasse ash-blended portland pozzolana cement (PPC) mortars have shown improvement on compressive strength with the addition of bagasse ash. Characterization of bagasse ash was done using XRD, DTA-TGA, SEM, and atomic absorption spectrometry. Moreover, durability of mortars was checked by measuring water absorption and apparent porosity for bagasse ash-blended mortars.

No abstract