Keywords: Dye; photolysis; pretreatment; methylene blue; photodegradation; biochemical degradation; textile

Abstract

In this study, the photodegradation of methylene blue (MB) simulated wastewater was investigated using three types of UV lamps emitting UV-A, UV-B, UV-C and a solar lamp emitting solar irradiation, as the source of light to enable the destruction of MB molecules by photochemical reactions. From the experimental data, UV-C irradiation proved to be the most effective irradiation light source that resulted in 96.7% degradation of MB after 5 h of irradiation, while solar irradiation treatment on the simulated dye wastewater degraded 29.6% of MB after 5 h of exposure and proved to be an encouraging option for this treatment as sunlight is a renewable, green energy source. COD analysis percentage of 83.3% achieved after 60 min proved the effectiveness of using this treatment option. Kinetic studies showed that all experiments fulfilled first-order kinetics (the correlation coefficient ranged between r=0.7495 to 0.998) for MB photo degradation.