Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Environmental Science, School of Energy and Environmental Sciences, Periyar University, Salem, Tamil Nadu, 636011, India
  • 2 Department of Food Science and Biotechnology, College of Life Science, Sejong University, Seoul, South Korea
  • 3 Department of Biomaterials, Saveetha Dental College and Hospital, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, Chennai, 600 077, India. hesam_kamyab@yahoo.com
  • 4 Department of Chemistry, Soongsil University, Seoul, 06978, South Korea
  • 5 Department of Smart Engineering and Advanced Technology, Faculty of Artificial Intelligence, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Jalan Sultan Yahya Petra, 54100, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. shreeshivadasan.kl@utm.my
  • 6 Department of Environmental Science, School of Energy and Environmental Sciences, Periyar University, Salem, Tamil Nadu, 636011, India. pskumares@periyaruniversity.ac.in
Environ Geochem Health, 2024 Jun 07;46(7):221.
PMID: 38849635 DOI: 10.1007/s10653-024-02000-8

Abstract

This study reported the synthesis and assessment of zinc oxide/iron oxide (ZnO/Fe2O3) nanocomposite as photocatalysts for the degradation of a mixture of methylene red and methylene blue dyes. X-ray diffraction analysis confirms that the crystallite of zinc oxide (ZnO) has a hexagonal wurtzite phase and iron oxide (Fe2O3) has a rhombohedral phase. Fourier Transform Infra-Red spectrum confirms the presence of Zn-O vibration stretching at 428, 480 and 543 cm-1 stretching confirming Fe-O bond formation. Scanning Electron Microscope images exhibited a diverse size and shape of the nanocomposites. The ZnO-90%/Fe2O3-10% and ZnO-10%/Fe2O3-90% nanocomposites reveal good photocatalytic activity with reaction rate constants of 1.5 × 10-2 and 0.66 × 10-2; and 1.3 × 10-2 and 0.60 × 10-2 for methylene blue and methyl red dye respectively. The results revealed that the synthesized ZnO/Fe2O3 nanocomposite is the best catalyst for dye degradation and can be used for industrial applications in future.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.