Zinc Metal–Organic Framework Growing on the Surface of Fruit Peels and Its Photocatalytic Activity

The development of water treatment materials using environmentally friendly natural biomasses as substitutes plays an increasingly important role in environmental protection. Zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) is often used for the catalytic degradation of dye wastewater, but due to its small particle size, its disadvantage of easy agglomeration prevents it from being fully functional. Herein, we report an efficient method for synthesizing biomasses/ZIF-8 using four different fruit peels as carriers. ZIF-8 nanoparticles are in-situ grown uniformly on their surface. The Brunauer–Emmett–Teller surface area of shaddock peel/ZIF-8 was found to be 752.15 m2g–1. After catalytic activity comparison, the loose shaddock peel/ZIF-8 showed the fastest and most significant degradation efficiency of 94% in methylene blue aqueous solution and could be used multiple times through a simple washing process.