Synthesis of ZnO-NiFe2O4 Magnetic Nanocomposites by Simple Solvothermal Method for Photocatalytic Dye Degradation under Solar Light

摘要

ZnO-NiFe2O4 magnetic nanocomposite photocatalysts were successfully synthesized by simple solvothermal method using nitric salts as starting materials and ethanol as solvent. The synthesized samples were characterized by XRD, FESEM-EDX, TEM, DRS-UV-vis, VSM, and FTIR instruments. Photocatalytic activity of the samples was evaluated by dye degradation under solar light irradiation. The results show that the diffraction peaks of nanocomposites correspond to the hexagonal wurzite of ZnO and spinal cubic structure of NiFe2O4. The microstructure studies revealed that nanocomposites were dominated by granular-like of ZnO nanoparticles were synthesized at 180°C and rod-like at 200'C.The estimated band gap value of ZnO-NiFe2O4 (1:0.01) nanocomposites is 2.78 eV which is lower than ZnO. The magnetic saturation (Ms) result showed a superparamagnetic behavior for nanocomposites. It was found that the photocatalytic activity of synthesized nanocomposites were higher than ZnO and NiFe2O4.