• Kaliyamoorthy, Gowthami
• Pongiya, Uma Devi
• Rajadurai, Vijayalakshmi
• Inbasekaran, Muthuvel
• Thambusamy, Stalin
• Chinnasamy, Surya
• Thirunarayanan, Ganesamoorthy

Abstract

<jats:p>Novel silver encapsulated nanocomposite zinc oxide/iron tetra-poly-vanadate (Ag-ZnO/Fe2V4O13) was synthesized with various wt% of silver (1.0–2.5 wt% of Ag) by cost-effective photo-deposition method under the irradiation of ultraviolet-A (UV-A) light. The nanostructure of the Ag-ZnO/Fe2V4O13 was explored by various characterization techniques. The surface functionalities were confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectra and the crystalline nature of the material was revealed by X-ray diffraction patterns. Furthermore, the surface morphology and the optical properties of the composites were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray–elemental color mapping (ECM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), ultraviolet–visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and photoluminescence. The crystallite size of Ag-ZnO/Fe2V4O13 was 28.5 nm which was consistent with HRTEM analysis. The photocatalytic activity was tested against aqueous methyl orange degradation under UV-A light irradiation. In all five runs, the stability of the catalyst was confirmed by reusability measurements and almost 98% of degradation was achieved. A suitable degradation pathway was proposed based on intermediates obtained during the degradation analyzed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. Trapping experiments confirmed that the superoxide radical anion (O2•−) was considered as the most active species for this degradation process. Complete mineralization was confirmed by the measurements of chemical oxygen demand.</jats:p>

Topics

• Deposition
• nanocomposite
• morphology
• surface
• photoluminescence
• silver
• scanning electron microscopy
• x-ray diffraction
• experiment
• Oxygen
• zinc
• mass spectrometry
• transmission electron microscopy
• iron
• gas chromatography
• spectrometry