Ajitkumar Tallapaka et al., International Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering Research, 10(4), April 2022, 210 – 218 210 ABSTRACT Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) are widely used for the removal of recalcitrant organic constituents from industrial and municipal wastewater. This study mainly focused the use of TiO 2 and ZnO catalysts for removal of textile dyes. Synthesis of TiO 2 and ZnO photo catalysts was done by sol-gel method. These catalysts were used to obtain enhanced photo catalytic action and were coated on glass beads to improve the photo catalytic activity. The synthesized beads were examined using SEM, FTIR and XRD. Synthesized photocatalysts were examined extensively for their photocatalytic activities with Reactive Orange(RO), Reactive Blue(RB), Textile industry Effluent (TIE) and mixture of dyes (RO+RB, RO+RB +TIE) at various concentrations (50ppm, 100ppm). The photocatalytic degradation of RO, RB, TIE, RO+RB and RO+RB +TIE dyes solution (100mg/L and 50mg/L) using TiO 2 and ZnO were investigated under UV light irradiation (λ=254nm). Photocatalytic studies revealed that the TiO 2 has shown much higher photocatalytic activity than the ZnO catalyst. The photocatalytic activity of the TiO 2 catalyst follows the order: Reactive Orange of 50 ppm (80.98%) > Reactive Blue dye of 50 ppm (77.17%)> Reactive Orange dye of 100 ppm (74.98)>Reactive blue of 100 ppm (72%). The photocatalytic activity of the ZnO catalyst follows the order: Reactive Orange of 50 ppm (75.12%) > Reactive Blue dye of 50 ppm (73.98%)> Reactive Blue dye of 100 ppm (71%)>Reactive Orange of 100 ppm (70%). Key words: Reactive Orange (RO), Reactive Blue (RB), Textile Industry Effluent (TIE), Photocatalytic studies, TiO 2 , ZnO, Textile Dyes. 1. INTRODUCTION Water is the core of sustainable development, but became a limited resource. Due to increase in population and changes in the climate have given rise to an alarming decline of freshwater resources and their availability, thus posing a major challenge worldwide. The frequency and intensity for droughts have drastically increased over the last 35 years due to global warming effect. India being the one of the top countries in textile manufacturing, it is estimated that more than 1 million textiles were thrown away every year. Even though nearly 100 per cent of clothing is recyclable, about 75 to 85% of textile waste ends up in landfills or is incinerated instead of being reused, thereby polluting the environment. Therefore, these wastewaters need to be treated before discharging them into water bodies. In past years, conventional biological and physical treatment methods (adsorption, ultrafiltration, coagulation etc.) have been used to remove organic pollutants. These methods are not efficient and cost effective for wastewaters containing high concentrations of more toxic pollutants. This requires some novel techniques to transfer the highly toxic pollutants chemically into benign species. [1,2,] Advanced oxidation processes (AOP) became a promising technology in the recent years, since they are most efficient, cheap, and eco-friendly in the degradation of any kind of toxic pollutants. AOPs generate hydroxyl radical, a strong oxidant, which can completely degrade or mineralize the pollutants Process Development for Photocatalytic Degradation of Reactive Dyes in Wastewater Ajitkumar Tallapaka, Anusha Reddy Chokkareddy, Jyothi Thati*, Sailu Chintha Corresponding Author: kattajyothi@gmail.com ajaytallapaka@gmail.com, anushareddychokkareddy@gmail.com chinthasailu@gmail.com . Department of Chemical Engineering University College of Technology Osmania University Hyderabad Telangana -500007. Received Date : March 3, 2022 Accepted Date : March 22, 2022 Published Date : April 07, 2022 ISSN 2347 - 3983 Volume 10. No.4, April 2022 International Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering Research Available Online at http://www.warse.org/IJETER/static/pdf/file/ijeter061042022.pdf https://doi.org/10.30534/ijeter/2022/061042022