Synthesis of Multifunctional Nanostructured Zinc–Iron Mixed Oxide Photocatalyst by a Simple Solution-Combustion Technique

Abstract

A series of nanostructure zinc-iron mixed oxide photocatalysts have been fabricated by solution-combustion method using urea as the fuel, and nitrate salts of both iron and zinc as the metal source. Different characterization tools, such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), diffuse reflectance UV-visible spectra (DRUV-vis), electron microscopy, and photoelectrochemical measurement were employed to establish the structural, electronic, and optical properties of the material. Electron microscopy confirmed the nanostructure of the photocatalyst. The synthesized photocatalysts were examined towards photodegradation of 4-chloro-2-nitro phenol (CNP), rhodamine 6G (R6G), and photocatalytic hydrogen production under visible light (λ ≥ 400 nm). The photocatalyst having zinc to iron ratio of 50:50 showed best photocatalytic activity among all the synthesized photocatalysts.

Assessing the photocatalytic transformation of norfloxacin by BiOBr/iron oxides hybrid photocatalyst: Kinetics, intermediates, and influencing factors

“…In this study, the enhanced photocatalytic activity was mainly derived from the efficient generation, separation and transfer of the photo-induced electron-hole pairs, which strongly depended on the band structure of the composite photocatalyst [18,40]. BiOBr was a p-type semiconductor, whereas Fe3O4 was a n-type semiconductor.…”

Development of photocatalytic coupled zinc–iron oxide nanoparticles via solution combustion for bisphenol-A removal

“…From the analysis, the band gap energy of the resultant coupled zinceiron oxide are 3.36 eV (S1), 3.27 eV (S2), 2.11 eV (S3) and 2.07 eV (S4). It was observed that the increase of iron loading in the coupled zinceiron oxide has reduced the band gap energy of the resultant photocatalyst (Pradhan et al, 2011). The result indicated that the presence of iron (III) oxide has significantly reduced the band gap of pristine zinc oxide.…”

“…AOPs can be characterized by the production of OH radicals due to the ability of these radicals to oxidize and mineralize most of the organic molecules by emitting carbon dioxide gas and inorganic ions (Zaw and Emett, 2002;Black and Veatch, 2010;Meshram et al, 2011;Oller et al, 2011;Pradhan et al, 2011;Tong et al, 2012;Maya-Treviño et al, 2014). Currently, a wide range of AOPs such as Fenton process, Fenton like process, ozonation and photocatalytic process have been well developed and applied in wastewater treatment.…”

“…Coupled metal oxide with pen junction can be synthesized by various techniques such as ball milling, solegel, hydrothermal, coprecipitation and solution combustion Shifu et al, 2009;Liu et al, 2010;Pradhan et al, 2011). Shifu et al (2009) reported the formation of pen junction between CaFe 2 O 4 and ZnO through physical ball milling and they observed better performance of the coupled metal oxide photocatalyst for methylene blue degradation.…”

“…It is reported that the synthesized coupled metal oxide was capable to photodegrade methylene blue with various functional groups of dye under ultraviolet and visible light. Among all the mentioned techniques, solution combustion is a facile technique that requires less time and low synthesis temperature to produce highly crystalline product (Pradhan et al, 2011;Singh and Madras, 2013).…”