Polypropylene (PP), due to its highest moisture resistance, light weight, durability, excellent physical properties, ease of manufacturing, and low-cost is considered the most important material in the modern plastic industry. Each year, a huge amount of waste PP is discarded, which releases micro-sized plastics into the biosphere, causing serious environmental problems and recycling of such waste plastics may not be economically viable. Co-axially aligned polypropylene (CAPP) is the most hydrophobic among all plastics, hence, it is the most difficult to degrade. In this study, Fe oxides and Zn oxides decorated mesoporous silica nanocomposite i.e., Fe2O3-ZnO@SiO2 (FZS) was synthesized using sol-gel/combustion method to degrade CAPP globules. It was done under visible light source by heterogeneous photo-Fenton process. Characterization of the pristine and treated CAPP globules was done by SEM, ATR-FTIR, and XPS. The effects of long-term heterogeneous photo-Fenton reaction on the structural and physicochemical variation of FZS was also investigated to check its sustainability. The SEM images showed the surface degradation of CAPP globules and no structural changes in the FZS. Similarly, FTIR and XPS analysis of the pristine and treated FZS samples showed no significant changes for the band and peak intensities respectively. However, the ATR-FTIR spectra of CAPP globules demonstrated a significant rise in the band intensity of –OH and C=O region and XPS revealed the increase in the O-1s and decrease in the C-1s peak intensity. The BET surface area of FZS increased with time and the degradation percentage of CAPP also got elevated. This enhanced performance is attributed to the structural modifications of FZS after visible light exposure, where increased surface area, pore volume, and OH groups density resulted in an increased number of the possible pathways responsible for the oxidation of CAPP surface. FZS could degrade 35.0% of CAPP globules in 3000 h. The fate of the degraded product was studied using LC/MS. FZS can be researched further with higher dosage and prolonged duration in pilot studies to degrade PP microplastics in water bodies.

Degradation of co-axially aligned polypropylene globules using a novel Fe and Zn oxides decorated mesoporous silica nanocomposite

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