Recently, metal-oxide based nanoparticles have been extensively utilized as photocatalysts because of their exceptional physiochemical properties. In this study, ZrO2 nanoparticles were prepared via a sol-gel approach to study their application as a photocatalyst. Structural analysis of the synthesized nanomaterial was done using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD). Using Debye-Scherrer’s formula, the average crystallite size of ZrO2 nanoparticles was determined to be approximately 23.85 nm. Optical properties of the fabricated nanomaterial were examined using UV-Visible spectroscopy and PL (photoluminescence) spectroscopy. On the basis of the absorption spectra, band gap of the nanomaterial was determined using the Tauc plot method. The band gap energy of ZrO2 nanoparticles synthesized from the sol-gel method was found to be 4.03 eV. Further, ZrO2 was employed to study the photocatalytic degradation of methyl red (MR) dye with a maximum duration of 120 min. Photodegradation of methyl red dye was studied with the help of UV-Visible spectroscopy. Degradation efficiency of ZrO2 for methyl red (MR) dye was examined with different time periods and was found to be 41.07% for 120 min.