Synthesis of Hierarchical Zr-Si Zeolite Via Nature Attapulgite and Ctab on its Excellent Photocatalytic Performance in Methylene Blue

Using the one-step hydrothermal crystallization method to use natural silicate clay attapulgite (ATP) as the silicon source, the zirconium ligand in the zirconium salt zirconium oxychloride (ZrOCl2 · 8H2O) was synthesized in the form of a skeleton structure containing Si-O-Zr structure heteroatoms zirconium-silicate (Zr-Si) zeolite, and add the mesoporous template cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) to adjust the pores, and then form the hierarchical Zr-Si zeolite with different content of CTAB. To obtain the complex inner structures, various surfactants as the morphology controlling reagent were applied to adjust the orientation growth and microstructure construction of photocatalysts. Examine the performance of its photocatalytic reduction dye, methylene blue(MB), when exposed to ultraviolet light. UV-vis characterization results show that the synthesized product has good photoresponse peaks in the ultraviolet region and great photocatalytic performance, for the reason that a small amount of CTAB promotes a portion of zirconium to replace silicon into the zeolite framework to form Zr-O-Si bonds and zirconium tetrahedra, resulting in an increase in lattice defects and oxygen vacancies and the photocatalytic effect is best when CTAB/Zr=2/1 is used. As expected, the optimizing sample hierarchical Zr-Si zeolite not only increases higher surface area but also enhances photogenerated electron-hole pairs separation efficiency. Photocatalytic activity is determined to be consistent with the apparent first-order kinetic model after examining the photocatalytic activity and kinetics model. At last, the hypothesized mechanism of the photocatalytic reaction as well as the MB degradation pathways were thoroughly addressed. They are green energy material worthy of application.