Bahawalpur is the largest division of the Punjab province in Pakistan. It is larger than many countries of the world. Gamma activity from the naturally occurring radionuclides namely 226Ra, 232Th, the primordial radionuclide 40K and the artificial radionuclide 137Cs was measured in the soil of the Bahawalpur division using gamma spectrometry technique. The mean activity of 226Ra, 232Th, 40K and 137Cs were found to be 32.9 +/- 0.9, 53.6 +/- 1.4, 647.4 +/- 14.1 and 1.5 +/- 0.2 Bq kg(-1), respectively. The mean radium equivalent activity Raeq, external hazard index, internal hazard index and terrestrial absorbed dose rate for the area under study are 158.5 +/- 4.1 Bq kg(-1), 0.4, 0.5 and 77.32 nGy h(-1), respectively. The annual effective dose equivalent to the public was found to be 0.5 mSv.
The vanadium oxide-zirconium oxide nanocomposite (V 2 O 5 /ZrO 2 NC) was synthesized by green method using Daphne alpine (D. alpine) leaves extract. The pore size and surface area was studied by N 2 adsorption-desorption process using Brunaure-Emmett-Teller (BET) methods and S BET was found to be 214 m 2 g −1 . The crystalline nature and other crystal properties was investigated by x-ray diffraction (XRD) and the calculated average crystallite size is 41.74 nm. The morphology of the V 2 O 5 /ZrO 2 NC was examined by scanning electron scanning microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The thermal stability was examine by thermogravimetric analysis and a total of 11.73% weight loss was observed. The optical property was studied by diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) and band gap was found to be 3.93 eV. The surface function group was studied the Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The photocatalytic performance of V 2 O 5 /ZrO 2 NC was examined against methyl orange and picloram and 76.94% and 86% were degraded in 75 min respectively.
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