Hendrix Abdul Ajiz, Ade Sonya Suryandari, Ulfiana Ihda Afifa, Widiyastuti Widiyastuti, Heru Setyawan, Lailatul Qomariyah, Mar’atul Fauziyah
The development of sustainable photocatalysts for persistent dye pollutants remains a major challenge in ″advanced wastewater treatment. Herein, a biomass-assisted ZnO/SiO2/C hybrid photocatalyst was engineered through a regenerated cellulose carbamate-mediated sol-gel route followed by pyrolysis at 700 °C. The incorporation of ZnO into the biomass-derived SiO2/C framework generated hybrid architectures with tunable crystallinity, morphology, and interfacial charge-transfer characteristics. XRD analysis revealed that ZnO crystallite sizes increased from approximately 6.6–16.4 nm before pyrolysis to 8.7–23.9 nm after pyrolysis, depending on ZnO concentration, indicating thermally induced crystallization and structural evolution during pyrolysis. The systematic variation of ZnO molar fraction significantly influenced photocatalytic performance, where methylene blue degradation increased from 32.28% at 25 mol% ZnO to an optimum of 58.27% at 50 mol% ZnO, followed by a decrease to 52.23% at 75 mol% ZnO due to excessive particle agglomeration. Photocatalytic experiments further demonstrated substantially higher degradation of cationic methylene blue than anionic methyl orange, highlighting the critical role of electrostatic adsorbate-catalyst interactions. These findings establish a sustainable and mechanistically informed strategy for designing biomass-derived inorganic-carbon hybrid photocatalysts toward advanced wastewater remediation. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2026.
Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Science, Universitas Pembangunan Nasional Veteran Jawa Timur, Surabaya, 60294, Indonesia; Department of Chemical Engineering, Politeknik Negeri Malang, Jl. Soekarno-Hatta No. 9, Malang, 65141, Indonesia; Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Industrial and System Engineering, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Kampus ITS, Sukolilo, Surabaya, 60111, Indonesia; Department of Industrial Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Vocation, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Kampus ITS, Sukolilo, Surabaya, 60111, Indonesia; Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Brawijaya, Malang, 65145, Indonesia
