Use of ZnO nanoparticles as catalyst for photocatalytic degradation of catechol: gene expression programming approach

ZnO catalyst was used in the photocatalytic process in an aqueous solution to increase the percentage of catechol degradation. ZnO catalysts have unique properties related to morphology, structure and functional groups. This study attempts to provide a new prediction model using gene expression programming (GEP) to estimate the percentage of catechol degradation measured by ۵۰ experiments. The parameters pH, ZnO dose, initial concentration, reaction time, UV intensity were used as input variables and catechol degradation percentage as output variables. Absolute fraction of variance (R۲), relative root square error (RRSE) and mean square error (MSE) were considered. The test results were randomly divided into ۳۵ training sets and ۱۵ testing tests. The best model was chosen at R۲ = ۰.۹۹۹۹, RRSE = ۰.۰۰۴۶ and MSE = ۰.۰۰۰۰۰۰۶. Therefore, this study shows that ZnO nanoparticles have a very good performance as a catalyst and have a high practical application for catechol decomposition in a catalytic method.

Keywords:

Gene expression programming , ZnO nanoparticles , Environmental parameters , Photocatalytic , Optimization , Box-Behnken methodology , Catechol.