Abstract:
Even today the efficient treatment of industrial waste water is not evident. The effluents may contain large amounts of harmful organic compounds that are not easily removed with conventional methods. Several semiconductors can act as photocatalysts but ZnO has been most commonly studied due to its ability to break down organic pollutants. A photocatalytic property of ZnO makes it close to an ideal catalyst due to its reduced toxicity and chemical stability, but its efficiency is limited by its large bandgap absorbs only in the UV light which accounts only 2-5% of the spectrum. Coupling ZnO with FeTiO3 visible light absorber semiconductor improves the efficiency of photodegradation of organic pollutants. This study focused on the synthesis and characterization of FeTiO3/ZnOsemiconductor nanoparticle for the application of photocatalytic degradation of organic dye in waste water. FeTiO3 was directly grown on surface of ZnOusing the simple and inexpensive SILAR method. UV-Visible spectroscopy was used to characterize the optical propertyfor the investigation of 2.1eV Eg, 3.467*10-2min-1 rate constant fitted by a pseudo-first-order reaction and 84.85% photodegradation of Methylene blue (MB) and form the trapping experiment the most active specie was hole with 11.82 % of degradation.Fourier transforms infrared for characterization of particle vibration frequency and X-ray diffraction powder was used to investigate the crystal structure and the average particle size of FeTiO3/ZnO powder calcined at 5500C was around 22.8nm.
Key words: Photodegradation; MB; SILAR; Iron Titanium Oxide/Zinc Oxide