Synthesis, Characterization and Application of Zinc Complexes in Photocatalytic Fuel Cell (PFC) for Wastewater Treatment and Generating Electricity
Photocatalytic fuel cell (PFC) is a water treatment technology which can treat wastewater and generate electricity simultaneously. This speciality has drawn vast attention from researchers and also the industrial sectors. However, although the efficiency of degrading organic pollutant by the s...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/39220/6/Master%20ScThesis_NurSyahiddaAni%20-%20fulltext.pdf |
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| Summary: | Photocatalytic fuel cell (PFC) is a water treatment technology which can treat wastewater
and generate electricity simultaneously. This speciality has drawn vast attention from
researchers and also the industrial sectors. However, although the efficiency of degrading
organic pollutant by the system is often high, the amount of electricity generated was still
scarce and insufficient electrical energy was harvested. The main reason was that the
application of commercialized photocatalyst in PFC has restricted further analysis in band
gap energy (Eg) which associated with the efficiency of a photocatalysis. Therefore, this
study aimed to investigate the relationship between the Eg and the overall efficiency of PFC
by applying ligand field theory (LFT). Firstly, the standard photocatalyst, ZnO, was used as
photoanode in the PFC to treat diluted palm oil mill effluent (POME). The chemical oxygen
demand (COD) removal efficiency was 93.75% and the maximum power (Pmax) generated
was 38.85 µW/cm2 after 6 hours operation at pH 7 under 1300 lx light intensity. Later, three
metal complexes were synthesized in this study, namely diacetylacetonatozinc(II) complex,
[Zn(acac)2], di(1,10-phenanthroline)zinc(II) chloride complex, [Zn(phen)2]Cl2 and
dichlorobis(triphenylphosphine)zinc(II) complex, [ZnCl2(PPh3)2] and dopped on a Zn plate
as the photoanode in their respective PFC system. These zinc complexes were synthesized
with pi-donor ligand, acetylacetonato (acac) as well as pi-acceptor ligand, namely 1,10-
phenanthroline (phen) and triphenylphosphine (PPh3) to alter the Eg of the photocatalyst
used. PFC system fabricated by aforementioned complexes were compared to a standard
ZnO/Zn PFC with diluted palm oil mill effluent (POME) as the electrolyte. All of the PFC
systems were optimized with parameters such as contact hour, initial organic pollutant
concentration, initial pH value and light intensity. Results showed that the overall efficiency
of [Zn(phen)2]Cl2/Zn PFC surpassed ZnO/Zn with 96.29% COD removal efficiency and Pmax
v
generation of 48.76 µW/cm2
at pH 6, under 1300 lx light intensity for 4 hours. The least
efficient system in this study was found to be [Zn(acac)2]/Zn with COD degradation at only
44.78% and Pmax of 9.33 µW/cm2
at pH 6 , under 1300 lx light intensity for 2 hours. The
overall efficiency of these complex was found to be correlated with the estimated Eg, as the
smaller the Eg the higher the efficiency of the PFC system in both degrading organic pollutant
and generating electricity.
Keywords: PFC, photocatalysis, POME treatment, zinc complexes, band gap energy |
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