Efficient Degradation of Dye Pollutants by Rapid Separable CoFe2O4/ZnO/Ag Nanocomposite

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Research Center of Petroleum University of Technology, Abadan, Iran

2 Department of Chemical Engineering, Mahshahr Branch, Islamic university, Mahshahr, Iran

Abstract

In this work, CoFe2O4/ZnO and CoFe2O4/ZnO/Ag nanoparticles were synthesized by co-precipitation and photodeposition methods. The obtained samples were characterized using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray, Fourier transform infrared, vibrating sample magnetometer, inductively coupled plasma optical emission and UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectrometry. SEM results confirmed nanosize structure for all samples. Furthermore, the band gap values obtained from DRS technique suggests that all the samples have semiconductor behavior. The photocatalytic behavior of CoFe2O4/ZnO/Ag nanocomposites was appraisement using the degradation of Methylene blue as water pollutant under UV and visible irradiation at room temperature. The CoFe2O4/ZnO/Ag nanocomposites have the preponderance to be completely recoverable with the application of an external magnetic field.

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