Fabrication and Characterization of Photocatalyst Pb3CdO7 for Degradation of Azure-A

Present work comprises of fabrication of the novel Pb3CdO7 ternary oxide composite from the corresponding precursors using a co-precipitation approach and calcined. The as-prepared material is then characterized by FTIR, FE-SEM, XPS, EDX, XRD, HR-TEM etc. analytical methods. Based on UV-Vis-NIR spectroscopy, the composite's direct energy band gap is determined to be 5.23 eV, which makes it an effective photocatalyst. The prepared photocatalyst is found to degrade Azure-A dye with an efficiency of up to 94.87%. Scavenger study suggests the participation of active free radicals O2•- (superoxide anion radical) as the responsible species in breakdown of the dye molecules. The operating parameters are controlled to maximize the photodegradation and a kinetic study is carried out. Used photocatalyst is recycled and is found to work at the same pace for up to five cycles.