Outlining the beneficial photocatalytic effect of ZnS deposition in simplistically developed iron oxide nanocomposites of different stoichiometry

Iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) are promising semiconductor photocatalysts driven under visible light owing to their lower bandgap value compared with other metal-oxide nanoparticles (NPs). Owing to the lower cost, IONPs have been combined with other NPs purposefully. In this study, ZnS was deposit...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied physics. A, Materials science & processing Materials science & processing, 2021, Vol.127 (4), Article 251
Main Authors: Butt, Muhammad Muteeb, Khan, Talha Farooq, Muhyuddin, Mohsin, Akram, M. Aftab, Ansar, Muhammad Zaka, Basit, Muhammad Abdul, Butt, Sajid
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied physics
Characterization and Evaluation of Materials
Condensed Matter Physics
Deposition
Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy
Ferric oxide
Hematite
Iron oxides
Machines
Manufacturing
Materials science
Metal oxides
Nanocomposites
Nanoparticles
Nanotechnology
Optical and Electronic Materials
Photocatalysis
Photodegradation
Physics
Physics and Astronomy
Processes
Rhodamine
Stoichiometry
Surfaces and Interfaces
Thin Films
Zinc sulfide
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Summary:Iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) are promising semiconductor photocatalysts driven under visible light owing to their lower bandgap value compared with other metal-oxide nanoparticles (NPs). Owing to the lower cost, IONPs have been combined with other NPs purposefully. In this study, ZnS was deposited on the three most common types of IONPs i.e., magnetite (Fe 3 O 4 ), hematite (α-Fe 2 O 3 ) and Goethite (α-FeOOH), targeting improvement in their photocatalytic response. Using a simplistic wet-chemical approach i.e., pseudo-successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (i.e., p- SILAR), resultant Fe 3 O 4 /ZnS, α-FeOOH/ZnS, and α-Fe 2 O 3 /ZnS nanocomposites were developed those exhibited higher photocatalytic efficiencies compared to corresponding IONPs. Rhodamine B (RhB) dye was used as a reference for comparative investigation of IONPs without and with ZnS deposition, which revealed that all IONPs were beneficiated with ZnS deposition, however, Fe 3 O 4 responded the most by resulting ~ 3 times higher increase (from 19.3 to 66.5%) in the photocatalytic degradation of RhB. The final order of efficiency for nanocomposites remained as Fe 3 O 4 /ZnS > α-FeOOH/ZnS > α-Fe 2 O 3 /ZnS nanocomposites. Individual IONPs and their nanocomposites were explored using customary material characterization techniques and their photocatalytic performance was explained in accordance with the qualitative and quantitative statistics using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) as well.
ISSN:0947-8396
1432-0630
DOI:10.1007/s00339-021-04401-3