OICC Press Iranian Journal of Catalysis 2345-4865 14 4 2024 10 08 Facile Synthesis of Waste Tire Scrap Derived Activated Carbon-ZnO Nanocomposite for the Photodegradation of Malachite Green and Antibacterial Activity 10.57647/j.ijc.2024.1404.36 EN Syed Nizam Uddin Shah Bukhari State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, College of Chemistry, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China AND Department of Basic Science and Humanities, Dawood University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, Sindh, 74800 Pakistan https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2809-1007 Aqeel Ahmed Shah Wet Chemistry Laboratory, Department of Metallurgical Engineering, NED University of Engineering and Technology, University Road, Karachi 75270, Pakistan https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3040-1668 Muhammad Ali Bhatti Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Sindh Jamshoro, 76080, Pakistan https://orcid.org/0009-0007-7980-5918 Wen Liu State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, College of Chemistry, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6794-2818 Abdul Karim Shah Department of Chemical Engineering, Dawood University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, Sindh, 74800 Pakistan https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2055-716X Zaffar Hussain Ibhupoto University of Sindh, Jamshoro, Pakistan Anjum Zehra Naqvi Department of Microbiology, University of Karachi, Karachi, Pakistan8 https://orcid.org/0009-0000-0820-994X Journal Article 2024 10 08 Wastewater containing toxic compounds poses health hazards to living beings. Current research focuses on the degradation of malachite green (MG) as a hazardous pollutant dye by using tire scrap-derived activated carbon (AC) to develop nanocomposites with ZnO by hydrothermal method. The morphology, crystal quality, electrochemical active surface area (ECSA), EIS, antibacterial activity, and optical and photo luminance aspects were studied. The morphology was studied by SEM. The crystalline and elemental composition study was performed using XRD and FTIR, respectively. UV-visible spectroscopy and photoluminescence were employed for optical studies. The ZnO@C nanocomposite exhibited a nanorod-like shape and hexagonal phase. The role of AC in ZnO@C composite was investigated for the removal of MG under UV illumination. Results exhibited that the degradation rate for MG was highly dependent upon dye concentration and pH. Furthermore, an antibacterial study was performed on the nanocomposites. A significant reduction in the band gap (12.6%) was achieved with excellent degradation efficiency of 100%. These results suggest that tire scrap waste could produce a new class of carbon materials for various applications, especially in the energy, environment, and biomedical sectors. Research Highlights Synthesis of ZnO@C nanocomposites via simple hydrothermal method. XRD, SEM, EDS, FTIR and TEM exhibited structural and compositional characterization. The photocatalytic performance and band gaps were measured using UV-Vis and PL spectroscopy analyses of the fluorescence of the photocatalyst. ECSA analysis demonstrated a specific capacitance of 7.822 μFcm-2 at 130 mVs-1, indicating charge storage capability. CV and EIS results provided the quantified measurement of resistance to charge transfer 2.875 Ω. This study addresses the ability and capability towards photocatalytic degradation using novel scrap tire-derived Activated Carbon-based ZnO@C nanocomposites.