Ce3+-ion-induced visible-light photocatalytic degradation and electrochemical activity of ZnO/CeO2 nanocomposite

In this study, pure ZnO, CeO2 and ZnO/CeO2 nanocomposites were synthesized using a thermal decomposition method and subsequently characterized using different standard techniques. High-resolution X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements confirmed the oxidation states and presence of Zn2+, Ce4+, Ce3+ and different bonded oxygen species in the nanocomposites. The prepared pure ZnO and CeO2 as well as the ZnO/CeO2 nanocomposites with various proportions of ZnO and CeO2 were tested for photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange, methylene blue and phenol under visible-light irradiation. The optimized and highly efficient ZnO/CeO2 (90:10) nanocomposite exhibited enhanced photocatalytic degradation performance for the degradation of methyl orange, methylene blue, and phenol as well as industrial textile effluent compared to ZnO, CeO2 and the other investigated nanocomposites. Moreover, the recycling results demonstrate that the ZnO/CeO2 (90:10) nanocomposite exhibited good stability and long-term durability. Furthermore, the prepared ZnO/CeO2 nanocomposites were used for the electrochemical detection of uric acid and ascorbic acid. The ZnO/CeO2 (90:10) nanocomposite also demonstrated the best detection, sensitivity and performance among the investigated materials in this application. These findings suggest that the synthesized ZnO/CeO2 (90:10) nanocomposite could be effectively used in various applications.

ZnO and cerium oxide (CeO 2 ) are the predominant semiconductors used for the photocatalytic degradation of contaminated water 2,3,9 . However, the main disadvantage of both of these metal oxides is their limited photocatalytic activity under visible light because of their large band gaps. Therefore, substantial efforts have been devoted to developing hybrid photocatalysts that are active under visible light because the solar spectrum contains ~45% of visible light and is freely available. Generally, hybrid photocatalysts show improved performance compared to their respective individual components 10,11 . The achievement of visible-light photocatalysis depends on the prevention of electron-hole recombination [10][11][12][13][14][15][16] . The hindrance of electron-hole recombination is achieved through several methods, such as doping of metals (Fe, Au, Ag, Mn, and etc.,) or nonmetals (F, N, S and etc.,) into ZnO or forming ZnO-based composites such as ZnO/metal, ZnO/metal oxide and ZnO/polymer [10][11][12][13][14][15][16] . Among the different reported composites, the simplest and most viable composites are those that comprise different semiconductors, such as ZnO/CdO 13 , ZnO/Mn 2 O 3 15 , and ZnO/CeO 2 16 . Recently, we reported that ZnO nanorods combined with Mn 2 O 3 can effectively prevent electron-hole recombination, and the resulting composite enabled the degradation of pollutants to be extended from the UV to the visible light range because of the synergetic effect between these two semiconductors 15 .
Conversely, nano-ZnO is well known and frequently used as an electrocatalyst to determine various enzymes. Ahmad et al. reported that ZnO nanosheets enabled the precise detection of uric acid (UA; 0.05-2 mM) because they provide a high electron density, which favors high sensitivity 17 . A glassy carbon electrode (GCE) with ZnO nanoflowers exhibited high sensitivity for the determination of dopamine because of the nanoflowers' interesting hierarchical nanostructure 18 . Among several chemicals found in human beings, UA and ascorbic acid (AA) are critical constituents because they play a vital role in human health. Any deviation from the specific level of these constituents in the blood leads to dangerous diseases such as altered blood pressure, heart problems, hyperuricemia, gout, Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, arthritis and kidney stones [17][18][19][20] . Therefore, the precise determination of these constituents in the blood is important for clinical diagnoses during early stages of related diseases. Among the several analytical methods used for this purpose, electrochemical analysis has been demonstrated to be a very favorable approach for AA and UA detection.
To the best of our knowledge, no research studies have clearly elucidated the photocatalytic mechanism of ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposites for the degradation of organic pollutants and industrial textile effluents (real sample analysis) or the electrocatalytic mechanism by which ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposites detect AA and UA. Therefore, in the present study, ZnO, CeO 2 and ZnO/CeO 2 (99:01, 97:03, 95:05, 90:10, 80:20, 70:30, 60:40, 50:50 weight ratios) were synthesized using a simple thermal decomposition technique. The synthesized samples were characterized using different techniques, including X-ray diffraction (XRD), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), high-resolution X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (HR-XPS), UV-Vis spectrophotometry and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis; the results are discussed in detail. All of the prepared materials were used for the photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange (MO), methylene blue (MB), phenol and industrial textile effluent (real sample analysis) under visible-light illumination. Additionally, the stability and reusability of the photocatalysts were investigated via recycling tests. Furthermore, the synthesized catalysts were also used as an electrochemical catalyst for the detection of UA and AA to determine the optimum ZnO/CeO 2 catalyst composition. The optimized and highly sensitive ZnO/CeO 2 (90:10) catalyst was finally used for the detection of various concentrations of UA and AA.

Results and Discussion
The structure of the prepared samples and their crystallite size were confirmed using powder XRD measurements. The diffraction patterns of ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposites with different component weight percentages were compared with those of pure ZnO and pure CeO 2 , as shown in Fig. 1. The XRD pattern of the pure ZnO is shown in Fig. 1(a). The results show that ZnO exhibits a hexagonal structure whose diffraction peaks correspond to hkl planes (100), (002), (101), (102), (110), (103) (200), (112) and (201); this pattern matches JCPDS No. 79-0208. Figure 1(b) shows the pattern of cubic-structured CeO 2 , whose peaks correspond to hkl planes (111), (200), (220) and (311); this pattern matches JCPDS No. 65-2975. The patterns of the ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposites with a CeO 2 content of ≤ 5 wt% are shown in Fig. 1(c-e). The intensity of the CeO 2 peaks in these patterns is very low, almost negligible. Therefore, we could not determine the lattice parameters of CeO 2 from these XRD patterns. When the wt% of CeO 2 in the nanocomposite was increased to 10 to 50 wt%, the intensities of the ZnO and CeO 2 peaks decreased and increased, respectively ( Fig. 1(f-j)). The variation of the intensity was due to the difference in scattering factors; i.e., the scattering factor of Ce 4+ ions is greater than that of Zn 2+ ions in the ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposites 21 . A similar observation was reported by Mishra et al. 21 . In Fig. 1(f-j), all of the diffraction patterns reveal the presence of two phases: hexagonal-structured ZnO and cubic-structured CeO 2 . The addition of CeO 2 to the ZnO matrix does not affect the hexagonal structure of ZnO. The Scherrer formula was used to calculate the crystallite sizes of the ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposites on the basis of the (101) diffraction peak of ZnO and the (111) diffraction peak of CeO 2 . The calculated lattice parameters and the crystallite sizes are summarized in Table 1. Therefore, the XRD pattern confirmed the formation of ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposites without any impurities. The BET specific surface area values of the nanocomposites were in agreement with the XRD results; the values are tabulated in Table 1. Compared with the diffraction peaks of pure ZnO, those of the nanocomposite were slightly shifted to lower angles, confirming that many interfaces are present in the nanocomposites 22 .
The surface morphologies of the pure ZnO, pure CeO 2 and ZnO/CeO 2 (99:1, 97:3, 95:5, 90:10, 80:20, 70:30, 60:40 and 50:50) nanocomposites were confirmed using FE-SEM analysis; the corresponding images are shown in Fig. 2. Pure ZnO ( Fig. 2(a)) was observed as irregular nanorods that were ~35 and ~500 nm in diameter and length, respectively. An FE-SEM image of the pure CeO 2 sample is shown in Fig. 2(b); this image shows a large number of spherically shaped agglomerated nanoparticles because of the small particle size of the CeO 2 . The addition of CeO 2 to ZnO appears to affect the morphology and size of the resulting nanocomposites, as clearly observed in the FE-SEM images (Fig. 2(c-j)). With increasing wt% of CeO 2 in the nanocomposites, the size of the ZnO nanorods decreased. Furthermore, in cases where the CeO 2 content was greater than 10 wt%, the nanocomposites consisted of highly agglomerated nanorods and spherically shaped particles. This simultaneous occurrence of nanorods and spherical particles might to attributable to the synergetic and nucleation effect between the ZnO and CeO 2 [23][24][25] . The composition of each element in the synthesized samples was confirmed and established using energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and are displayed in Fig. S1. The pure ZnO nanorods contained Zn and O, whereas pure CeO 2 consisted of Ce and O. The 10 wt% and 30 wt% ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposites contained Zn, Ce and O, as clearly observed in Fig. S1(c) and (d). Therefore, the EDX spectra confirmed the synthesis of ZnO, CeO 2 and ZnO/CeO 2 samples and the absence of impurities.
TEM and HR-TEM images of the ZnO/CeO 2 (90:10) nanocomposite are shown in Fig. 3. The TEM image shows the ZnO nanorods along with CeO 2 nanoparticles, which are highlighted in Fig. 3(a). The length of the ZnO nanorods was ~200 nm, and the diameter of the CeO 2 nanoparticles was ~30 nm. The size of the ZnO nanorods decreased because of the CeO 2 nanoparticles and the synergistic effect between CeO 2 and ZnO 26 . The HR-TEM and selected-area electron diffraction (SAED) patterns further confirmed the structure of the materials. The HR-TEM image ( Fig. 3(b)) clearly shows that, during the formation of the nanocomposite, synergetic and nucleation effects were induced between the ZnO and CeO 2 ; in addition, defects were observed on the surface of the ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposite. The d-spacing values were calculated on the basis of the HR-TEM image and SAED pattern. The calculated d-spacing values show that the ZnO nanorods exhibited a hexagonal structure and that CeO 2 exhibited a cubic structure, consistent with the XRD results.
The STEM micrographs and elemental mapping images for the nanocomposites are shown in Figs S2 and S3, respectively. To determine the location of ceria in the ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposites, samples were analyzed using STEM; the consistent bright-and dark-field images are shown in Fig. S2. Elemental mapping images based on these STEM images (highlighted square box) were collected (Fig. S3); the results clearly show that the nanocomposite contains Zn, Ce and O and that the CeO 2 particles are dispersed uniformly rather than being separated individually or edged. These observations confirm that the CeO 2 particles are located on the ZnO surface and are uniformly distributed.
The elemental composition and chemical states of the synthesized ZnO/CeO 2 (90:10) nanocomposite were confirmed using XPS. The XPS survey spectrum is shown in Fig. 4  the ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposites, as shown in Fig. 4(b). This result indicates that the Zn exists in a Zn 2+ oxidation state. The HR-XPS spectrum of the Ce peaks are presented in Fig. 4(c); their consistent binding energies represent the integrated peaks of Ce 3+ and Ce 4+ ions. Because of surface defects and a synergistic interaction between ZnO and CeO 2 , some Ce 3+ sites were formed, which led to the formation of amorphous Ce 2 O 3 . Because the Ce 2 O 3 was amorphous, it could not be detected by XRD, consistent with the XRD results in previous reports 2, 3 . Four types of surface O were also observed ( Fig. 4(d)) at binding energies of 532.6, 531.3, 530.8 and 534.1 eV; these different O binding energies are associated with Zn 2+ , Ce 3+ , Ce 4+ and surface hydroxyl groups, respectively 2,3,27 . Therefore, the XPS results also confirmed the presence of Ce 3+ in the ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposite. The estimation of the optical absorption wavelength of the prepared nanocomposites is an essential factor because, during photocatalysis, sufficient electrons will be excited from the valence band to the conduction band of the photocatalysts only if the energy of the incident light is equivalent to or greater than the photocatalysts' band-gap energy. Otherwise, the photocatalytic activity will be limited or not occur 9 . Therefore, we measured the optical absorption wavelength of the synthesized ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposites (99:1, 97:3, 95:5, 90:10, 80:20, 70:30, 60:40 and 50:50), pure ZnO and pure CeO 2 using a UV-vis spectrophotometer; the results are shown in Fig. 5. The absorption edge of the pure ZnO and CeO 2 lies in the blue region; the corresponding wavelengths are ~388 nm (3.2 eV) and ~381 nm (3.25 eV), respectively, which lie in the UV region. Conversely, the ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposite showed (red shift) absorbance over a wider range (at wavelengths greater than 400 nm), which led to a shift toward the red region of the spectrum, as highlighted in Fig. 5. The band edge of the nanocomposite is wider because it contains amorphous Ce 2 O 3 , whereas the pure ZnO has a very sharp band edge 28 . This wider band edge for amorphous Ce 2 O 3 has been speculated to arise from the formation of Ce 3+ ions that have induced some localized mid-gap states in the band gap 2,3 . Therefore, the UV-vis absorption results confirm that the nanocomposite can harvest visible light and generate a greater number of electrons and holes under visible-light irradiation 15 . These results also suggest that, during the photocatalytic reactions, the generated holes and electrons could actively participate in oxidation and reduction reactions 15 Fig. 6.
The degradation efficiency of all of the prepared photocatalysts were calculated; the results are tabulated in Table 2. The pure ZnO nanorods and the pure CeO 2 nanospheres exhibited a reduced degradation efficiency because of their large band gaps 16,29 . Conversely, the ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposite exhibited a greater degradation efficiency because of its narrow band gap and wider absorption wavelength region, which resulted in the absorption of visible light and the production of more electrons and holes during the photocatalytic reaction. The degradation rate of MB was observed to be superior to those of MO and phenol. The greater degradation of MB is attributed to its structure; simultaneously, MB can function as a photocatalyst sensitizer 9 .
The first-order rate constant (k) was calculated using the formula k = ln(C/C 0 )/t, where C 0 and C are the concentrations of MO, MB and phenol at the irradiation times 0 and t min, respectively. On the basis of this equation, the first-order rate constant (k) was determined; the results are tabulated in Table 2. The ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposite (90:10) exhibited a superior rate constant compared to those of pure ZnO, CeO 2 and the other wt% nanocomposites because of its high surface area and the synergistic effect between CeO 2 and ZnO 15,26 . The degradation results clearly show that the degradation efficiency does not increase monotonously with increasing CeO 2 content beyond 10 wt%, which was considered the optimum weight percentage. CeO 2 in concentrations up to the optimum amount acts as an electron-hole separation center and, hence, enhances the photocatalytic activity. However, when the CeO 2 content is greater than 10 wt%, CeO 2 begins to act as a charge-carrier recombination center and, hence, reduces the efficient separation of charge 11,30 . Consequently, we further investigated the best-performing degradation photocatalyst, ZnO/CeO 2 (90:10), for the degradation of industrial textile effluent under visible-light irradiation.
The procedure described elsewhere 26 for photocatalytic decomposition of diluted industrial textile effluent was used in the present experiments. The photocatalytic decomposition of industrial textile effluent by the ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposite (90:10) is shown in Fig. 7(a) as a function of the irradiation time. These results clearly indicate that the intensity of the absorption band decreases with increasing irradiation time. The absorption spectrum appears to be completely flat after 6 h of irradiation, which confirms that almost all of the industrial textile effluent was decomposed by the ZnO/CeO 2 (90:10) as a photocatalyst under visible-light irradiation.
The total organic carbon content (TOC) and UV-vis absorbance results ( Fig. 7(b)) indicate that, with increasing irradiation time, the C/C 0 value of the industrial textile effluent steadily decreases. This result demonstrates that, as the irradiation time increases, the concentration of the industrial textile effluent decreases. The TOC results confirm that ~90.2% degradation was achieved within 6 h.
The stability and reusability analysis of the ZnO/CeO 2 (90:10) photocatalyst was conducted using a recycling test; the results are shown in Fig. 8(a). After three recycling processes, the results of the industrial textile effluent degradation efficiency by the ZnO/CeO 2 (90:10) photocatalyst were observed to have changed only slightly. Therefore, these results confirm that the ZnO/CeO 2 (90:10) nanocomposite exhibits good efficiency and stability and can be used repeatedly in extended environmental applications.      adsorb oxygen molecules to form superoxide radicals, which are responsible for the degradation/oxidation of the organic pollutants 2 . This oxidation process is capable of decomposing the industrial textile effluent and other pollutants under visible-light treatment. Moreover, the ZnO/CeO 2 photocatalyst demonstrated a red shift in the absorption wavelength range (Fig. 5) and exhibited defects on its surface, which stimulates the formation of more electron and hole pairs during the irradiation and minimizes their recombination through interfacial transfer 34 . Additionally, ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposites have different energy states; therefore, during the photocatalytic reaction, the recombination of the photogenerated electrons and holes can be prevented, which is helpful in improving the photocatalytic activity of the photocatalyst under visible-light irradiation 34 .
In addition, another possible explanation for the high efficiency of the nanocomposite is the presence of an increased number of interfaces, which was confirmed by STEM and XRD. Yang et al. clearly explained that the interface region does not serve as a recombination center for the charge carriers and imparts the materials with greater stability, which in turn results in a highly efficient and stable photocatalyst because of the superior degradation within a short irradiation time 35 . Electrochemical studies. Electrochemical experiments were performed to examine the sensing ability of the ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposite for UA and AA. The cyclic voltammetry (CV) responses of a bare GCE and GCEs modified with pure ZnO nanorods and ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposites were collected at a scan rate of 50 mV/s against 3 mM UA; the results are shown in Fig. S4. The results show that an increase in the CeO 2 percentage also increases the current response at concentrations up to 10 wt%; however, at concentrations greater than 10 wt% CeO 2 , the current response decreases (Fig. S4). The 90:10 ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposite exhibited the highest sensitivity among the investigated materials (Fig. S4). The CV results for pure ZnO and ZnO/CeO 2 (90:10) in the presence of 3 mM of UA and AA are illustrated in Fig. 9(a,b). These results also confirm that, compared to the pure ZnO nanorods, the ZnO/CeO 2 (90:10) nanocomposite exhibits a higher current response at a lower potential.
The highly sensitive ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposite (90:10) was further used to detect various concentrations of UA and AA (1-8 mM); the results are shown in Fig. 9(c). Cobalt-doped hematite nanospheres have been previously reported to effectively detect UA and AA because of their large available surface area and small band gap 36 .  Choi et al. reported that the morphology of the nanomaterials is also an important parameter for sensing; hence, less agglomerated Co 3 O 4 nanoparticles exhibit enhanced sensing behavior compared to more agglomerated Co 3 O 4 nanoparticles 37 . Similarly, in this case, ZnO/CeO 2 (90:10) exhibits higher sensitivity compared to the other compositions and pure ZnO because of its lower extent of aggregation, higher surface area, and a smaller band gap. This finding also strongly coincides with the BET, FE-SEM and UV-vis spectroscopy results. Therefore, the high sensitivity of the ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposite toward UA and AA is due to its high surface area and reduced agglomeration.

Conclusion
The ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposites were successfully synthesized using a simple thermal decomposition method and were characterized using standard techniques. The XPS results confirm the presence of Ce 3+ ions in the ZnO/ CeO 2 nanocomposite. When compared with pure ZnO and CeO 2 as well as all other compositions of ZnO/CeO 2 , the ZnO/CeO 2 (90:10) nanocomposite exhibited superior photocatalytic degradation of pollutants and a high sensitivity for the electrochemical detection of AA and UA because of the presence of Ce 3+ ions, a large available surface area and less agglomeration. Therefore, because of its promising and enhanced photocatalytic degradation performance and electrochemical detection capability, this ZnO/CeO 2 (90:10) nanocomposite can be effectively used for future environmental and clinical applications.

Experimental Procedure
Materials. Zinc acetate dihydrate, cerium(III) acetate hydrate, AA, UA, MB, MO and phenol were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich. All aqueous solutions were prepared using double-distilled water.
Synthesis of ZnO, CeO 2 and ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposites. Preparation of the ZnO, CeO 2 and ZnO/ CeO 2 nanocomposites was performed using the vapor-to-solid mechanism 38 . Increasing the temperature of the reactants (raw materials) resulted in the formation of vapors, which, upon cooling, settled/deposited onto a crucible. At the beginning of the condensation reaction, defects on the surface of the crucible (substrate) acted as nucleation sites for the oxide vapors 34 . Further condensation permitted such nuclei to grow into nanoparticles. On the basis of this mechanism, ZnO was prepared as follows: 3.0 g of zinc acetate dihydrate (raw material) was ground for more than 3 h using an agate pestle and mortar. The ground raw material was placed in an alumina crucible and calcined in a muffle furnace at 350 °C for 3 h. CeO 2 nanomaterial was prepared in a similar manner using cerium(III) acetate hydrate as the raw material under the same conditions. ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposites with different weight percentages were prepared by mixing various weight percentages of zinc acetate dihydrate and cerium(III) acetate (in weight ratios of 99:1, 97:3, 95:5, 90:10, 80:20, 70:30, 60:40 and 50:50). The mixtures were ground for more than 3 h and calcined in a muffle furnace at 350 °C for 3 h.
Photocatalytic experiment. The degradation of colored dyes as well as colorless pollutants is highly significant because wastewater contains many colored and colorless toxic chemicals 26 . Therefore, in this report, we selected two colored dyes (MO and MB) as well as colorless phenol as model pollutants. Initially, 500 mg of the photocatalyst was mixed with 500 mL of an aqueous pollutant solution (MO, MB and phenol) in a 600 mL cylindrical vessel. The vessel was covered by a 0.5% aqueous K 2 Cr 2 O 7 solution circulating in a glass jacket to prevent UV radiation. The source of the visible light was a projection lamp (7748XHP 250 W, Philips) fitted in the photoreactor. The procedure used to prepare the dyes and other procedures were adopted from our previous reports 15,25 . On the basis of the results of the degradation experiments involving the model dyes and phenol, we determined that the ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposite (90:10) exhibited the greatest photocatalytic degradation activity. Furthermore, this optimized and highly efficient photocatalyst was used in subsequent degradation experiments involving industrial textile effluent (real sample analysis).
Electrochemical experiments. All of the electrochemical measurements were performed on a PGSTAT-12 electrochemical work station (AUTOLAB, The Netherlands). The measurements were based on a three-electrode system with GCE (0.07 cm 2 ) used as the working electrode, a Pt wire (~20 cm 2 ) as the counter electrode and a saturated calomel electrode (SCE) as the reference electrode. Prior to each experiment, the GCE surface was polished with fine-grade alumina powder to a mirror finish, sonicated for approximately 15 min in double-distilled water, degreased with acetone and washed with an abundant amount of double-distilled water. All of the solutions were purged with nitrogen (99.99%) for 30 min before each electrochemical measurement, and a nitrogen environment was maintained throughout the experiments. Pure ZnO, CeO 2 and ZnO/CeO 2 were used to modify the GCE as follows: 3.0 mg of pure ZnO, pure CeO 2 or ZnO/CeO 2 nanocomposite was separately suspended in 3.0 mL of ethanol and subjected to ultrasonic agitation for 30 min to obtain a homogeneous suspension. A polished GCE was coated with 5 μL of the prepared suspension to prepare GCEs modified with pure ZnO, pure CeO 2 or ZnO/ CeO 2 nanocomposite. Characterization details. The structure and crystallite size of the prepared materials were determined using an X-ray diffractometer (Rich Seifert 3000, Germany) equipped with a Cu K α1 radiation source (λ = 1.5406 Å). The presence of the elements in the photocatalyst and their oxidation states were examined using XPS (DRA 400-XM1000 OMICRON, ESCA + , Omicron Nanotechnology, Germany). The specific surface area was calculated using the BET equation and data obtained using a Micromeritics ASAP 2020 (USA). The surface morphology, elemental analysis and EDX analysis were conducted using FE-SEM (HITACHI-SU6600, Hitachi, Japan). HR-TEM was performed using a Tecnai F20-FEI (USA). The optical properties and photocatalytic activities were measured using a UV-vis spectrophotometer (RX1, Perkin-Elmer, USA). Photocatalytic degradation of the industrial textile effluent was confirmed using the total organic carbon (TOC) content, which was measured using a TOC analyzer (Shimadzu, Japan).