Improving Photocatalytic Performance in Degradation of Methylene Blue using Magnetite Fe-doped ZnO/Montmorillonite Nanocomposite

摘要

In this work, we have successfully synthesized Fe:ZnO/Montmorillonite (MMT) nanocomposite with various loading of magnetite (Fe3O4) using co-precipitation method. The as-prepared samples were characterized by some measurements such as X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Burneur-Emment-Teller (BET) surface area analysis, and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). The XRD result shows that the diffraction pattern of nanocomposites exhibit characteristic from hexagonal wurtzite structure of ZnO and cubical spinel structure of Fe3O4. However, the diffraction pattern from MMT could not be detected using XRD measurement. The presence of MMT in the nanocomposite was further confirmed in the FTIR spectra. Furthermore, the photocatalytic performance of the samples was also checked for degrading methylene blue (MB) under UV light irradiation. The result shows that incorporation of Fe3O4 in Fe:ZnO/MMT has better photocatalytic efficiency than Fe:ZnO/MMT alone. Stability of the nanocomposites was also monitored after several cycle processes.