Novel hydrothermal-assisted microwave synthesis of NiTiO3/ZnO and sonophotocatalytic effect for degradation of rhodamine B Article uri icon

abstract

  • This paper presents synthesis hydrothermal-assisted microwave method at low temperature of NiTiO3/ZnO for photocatalytic and sonophotocatalytic degradation of rhodamine B dye. XRD patterns revealed the presence pure phases of the materials, whereas morphology by SEM clearly indicates the presence of hexagonal nanorods-prisms of ZnO mixed with agglomerated particles of NiTiO3. Photocatalysts showed energy band gap values between 2.2 and 2.9 eV allowing their activation under visible light irradiation. PL curves corroborated that NiTiO3/ZnO with 90:10 ratio is the one that presented the lowest intensity indicating higher active site generation and lower electron-hole pair recombination. Results of sonophotocatalytic activity achieved almost 95%25 dye degradation in 120 min for NiTiO3/ZnO (90:10), while the pure oxides degraded up to 74%25. Obtaining a 35%25 increase in efficiency and increasing the reaction rate up to 4 times compared to photocatalytic tests. FTIR analyses show the decomposition of the molecule by sonophotocatalysis which favors the breaking of C-C, C-O and C-N bonds. In conclusion, synthesis of NiTiO3/ZnO achieved a synergy between both oxides, enhanced the electron-hole separation due to heterojunction between both semiconductors, which during sonophotocatalytic processes favored the formation of more reactive radicals. Therefore, NiTiO3/ZnO oxides can be considered as active materials for application in photoinduced processes. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science%2bBusiness Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

publication date

  • 2022-01-01