Synthesis and characterization of MnFe2O4@ZnO-GO and MnFe2O4@ZnO-rGO nanocomposites with evaluation of improved Photocatalytic performance Under Sun Light

Abstract

We have fabricated novel MnFe2O4@ZnO–GO and MnFe2O4@ZnO–rGO nanocomposites through chemical facile hydrothermal procedure at low temperature of 180 °C for 3h.We reported the successfully synthesis of the MnFe2O4@ZnO nanocomposite via the co-precipitation method and was calcined at 200 °C for 3 h. Our synthesis of MnFe2O4@ZnO modified by the different weight percentages of GO and rGO.The as-synthesized samples were investigated by techniques XRD, FE-SEM, EDS, TEM,FT-IR,UV-DRS, PL, BET. TEM observations have displayed that MnFe2O4@ZnO nanoparticles were deposited on the graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide surface. Magnetic studies demonstrated that the MnFe2O4@ZnO–GO and MnFe2O4@ZnO–rGO nanocomposites can be used as a magnetically separable photocatalyst.The photodegradation efficiency of the prepared materials was evaluated by the decomposition of Congo Red (CR) in 35 min of natural sunlight irradiation. Among the synthesized materials, the MnFe2O4@ZnO-GO photocatalyst showed maximum photocatalytic activity(99.54 % ).We also investigated the role of some scavengers in the degradation procedures to study the effect of active species. The studies from the radical scavengertests showed that active radicals like •O2 -, e, h+, and •OH were involved in the photodegradation of CR dye. The experimental results were applied to illustrate the proposed mechanism ability for improved photocatalysis. The Kinetics investigations have revealed that the degradation of CR by the prepared photocatalysts follows the pseudo-first-order kinetics and the rate constant attained for MnFe2O4@ZnO-GO (k = 78.10-3 min−1) was higher than of MnFe2O4@ZnO-rGO (k = 57.10−3 min−1).