The unavailability of clean drinking water is one of the significant health issues in modern times. Industrial dyes are one of the dominant chemicals that make water unfit for drinking. Among these dyes, methylene blue (MB) is toxic, carcinogenic, and non-biodegradable and can cause a severe threat to human health and environmental safety. It is usually released in natural water sources, which becomes a health threat to human beings and living organisms. Hence, there is a need to develop an environmentally friendly, efficient technology for removing MB from wastewater. Photodegradation is an advanced oxidation process widely used for MB removal. It has the advantages of complete mineralization of dye into simple and nontoxic species with the potential to decrease the processing cost. This review provides a tutorial basis for the readers working in the dye degradation research area. We not only covered the basic principles of the process but also provided a wide range of previously published work on advanced photocatalytic systems (single-component and multi-component photocatalysts). Our study has focused on critical parameters that can affect the photodegradation rate of MB, such as photocatalyst type and loading, irradiation reaction time, pH of reaction media, initial concentration of dye, radical scavengers and oxidising agents. The photodegradation mechanism, reaction pathways, intermediate products, and final products of MB are also summarized. An overview of the future perspectives to utilize MB at an industrial scale is also provided. This paper identifies strategies for the development of effective MB photodegradation systems.
1 October 2020 in Science of The Total Environment
In this paper, a low-cost resin-coated commercial-photo-paper substrate is used to design a printed reconfigurable multiband antenna. The two PIN diodes are used mainly to redistribute the surface current that provides reconfigurable properties to the proposed antenna. The antenna size of 40 mm × 40 mm × 0.44 mm with a partial ground, covers wireless and mobile bands ranging from 1.91 GHz to 6.75 GHz. The parametric analysis is performed to achieve optimized design parameters of the antenna. The U-shaped and C-shaped emitters are meant to function at 2.4 GHz and 5.9 GHz, respectively, while the primary emitter is designed to operate at 3.5 GHz. The proposed antenna achieved peak gain and radiation efficiency of 3.4 dBi and 90%, respectively. Simulated and measured results of the reflection coefficient, radiation pattern, gain, and efficiency show that the antenna design is in favorable agreement. Since the proposed antenna achieved wideband (1.91–6.75 GHz) using PIN diode configuration, using this technique the need for numerous electronic components to provide multiband frequency is avoided.