No abstract

Nanocrystalline nanoparticles of pristine ZnO and La-doped ZnO have been synthesised usinga combustion method using various concentrations of lanthanum dopant followed by calcination for 3 hat 700 °C. The crystalline structure, chemical composition and optical characteristics have been characterisedusing X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron spectroscopy (SEM) attached with energy dispersiveX-ray (EDX) spectroscopy, Brunauer Emmett Teller (BET), UV-vis. spectroscopy and photoluminescence(PL) spectroscopy. Absorption spectra showed that the absorbance increased with La-doping and the blueshift observed was due to an increase in the band gap from 3.24 to 3.27 eV. The photocatalytic activitiesof the samples prepared were evaluated using the photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange (MO) underirradiation by sunlight. The textile mill effluents containing organic matter were also irradiated with sunlightinducing photocatalysis and the chemical oxygen demand (COD) of the treated effluent were investigated.The results showed that the ZnO photocatalyst doped with 1.0 at.% lanthanum exhibited four timesenhancement in the photocatalytic activity compared to pure ZnO.