Plasmonic effect and charge separation-induced photocatalytic degradation of organic dyes utilizing Au/ZnFe 2 O 4 @rGO t
- PDF / 1,630,024 Bytes
- 9 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 64 Downloads / 198 Views
Plasmonic effect and charge separation‑induced photocatalytic degradation of organic dyes utilizing Au/ZnFe2O4@rGO ternary composite Dhanaprabhu Pattappan1 · K. V. Kavya1 · Stella Varghese1 · R. T. Rajendra Kumar1 · Yuvaraj Haldorai1 Received: 15 April 2020 / Accepted: 3 September 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Gold (Au) nanoparticles decorated zinc ferrite/reduced graphene oxide ( ZnFe2O4@rGO) ternary composite was successfully synthesized and applied for the degradation of bromophenol blue dye and rhodamine B. The as-synthesized Au/ ZnFe2O4@rGO ternary composite was confirmed by X-ray diffraction, UV–visible spectroscopy, and Transmission electron microscopy. The photocatalyst showed 96% degradation of bromophenol blue dye under sunlight at 180 min. Similarly, the composite photodegraded 94% of rhodamine B compared to the pure ZnFe2O4 (61%) and ZnFe2O4@rGO (76%) at 120 min. The photocatalytic activity of ternary composite was greatly increased compared to the pure Z nFe2O4 and Z nFe2O4@rGO due to the surface plasmon resonance effect of Au. The Z nFe2O4 is active under visible light to separate the photoexcited electron–hole pairs and accelerating the electron transfer. The catalyst stability did not decrease after four recycles. The as-prepared ternary composite catalyst could be applied to degrade the pollutant materials owing to its high efficiency in visible light and its excellent reusability. Keywords ZnFe2O4 · Graphene · Gold nanoparticles · Photocatalyst · Solar light
1 Introduction Industries such as textile [1], cosmetic [2], plastic, paper, leather, ceramic, ink, and food processing, release various toxic dyes that are considered as the main reasons for water pollution [3]. The removal of toxic dyes from wastewater is a major challenge in recent years [4]. Although several methods are used to remove or degrade the toxic dyes [5], they are ineffective to remove dyes from wastewater [6]. Dyes such as bromophenol blue, methyl orange, and methylene blue, are commonly used in textile industries. They cause ecological hazards and results in mutagenic and carcinogenic effects on the environment and water organisms [7]. The photocatalytic technique is one of the important methods for the degradation of pollutants and considered to be ‘green’ and costeffective [8, 9]. Semiconductor catalysts are generally used for the photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants [10, * Yuvaraj Haldorai [email protected] 1
Department of Nanoscience and Technology, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu 641046, India
11]. Semiconductor photocatalysts have tremendous potential to treat organic pollutants in water and air and this process is known as an advanced oxidation process [12]. This process generated highly reactive superoxide anion radicals (O2·–) and hydroxyl radicals (OH·) destroy the organic pollutants through oxidation and reduction process [13]. However, most excessively used semiconductor photocatalysts are TiO2 and ZnO which demonstrated exc
Data Loading...
