Jahanara Kosar, Farhadi Saeed
Department of Chemistry, Lorestan University Khorramabad 68151-44316 Iran
RSC Adv. 2019 May 17;9(27):15615-15628. doi: 10.1039/c9ra01968e. eCollection 2019 May 14.
A novel magnetic cadmium titanate-copper ferrite (CdTiO/CuFeO) nanocomposite, in which spherical CuFeO nanoparticles were loaded onto the surface of CdTiO nanoplates, was successfully synthesized a sol-gel hydrothermal route at 180 °C. The structure, morphology, magnetic and optical properties of the as-prepared nanocomposite were respectively characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area analysis, UV-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM) and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The photocatalytic activity of this novel CdTiO-based magnetic nanocomposite was investigated for the degradation of organic dye pollutants such as methylene blue (MB), rhodamine B (RhB), and methyl orange (MO) in the presence of HO under visible light irradiation. The results showed that the photocatalyst completely degraded three dyes within 90-100 min. Compared with pure CdTiO and CuFeO, the heterogeneous CdTiO/CuFeO nanocomposite exhibited significantly enhanced photocatalytic efficiency. On the basis of the results of the OH trapping and photoluminescence (PL) experiments, the enhanced photocatalytic performance was mainly ascribed to the efficient separation of photo-induced electron-hole pairs and the formation of highly active hydroxyl radicals (OH) species in the CdTiO/CuFeO photocatalytic oxidation system. The PL measurements of the CdTiO/CuFeO nanocomposite also indicated an enhanced separation of photo-induced electron-hole pairs. Moreover, the nanocomposite could be easily separated and recycled from contaminant solution using a magnet without a decrease in their photocatalytic activity due to their good magnetic separation performance and excellent chemical stability. Based on these findings, CdTiO/CuFeO nanocomposite could be a promising visible-light-driven magnetic photocatalyst for converting solar energy to chemical energy for environmental remediation.
一种新型的磁性钛酸镉 - 铜铁氧体（CdTiO/CuFeO）纳米复合材料成功通过溶胶 - 凝胶水热法在180°C下合成，其中球形的CuFeO纳米颗粒负载在CdTiO纳米片的表面。通过傅里叶变换红外（FT - IR）光谱、X射线衍射（XRD）、场发射扫描电子显微镜（FESEM）、能量色散X射线（EDX）光谱、透射电子显微镜（TEM）、布鲁诺尔 - 埃米特 - 泰勒（BET）表面积分析、紫外 - 可见漫反射光谱（DRS）、振动样品磁强计（VSM）和光致发光（PL）光谱分别对所制备的纳米复合材料的结构、形态、磁性和光学性质进行了表征。研究了这种新型的基于CdTiO的磁性纳米复合材料在可见光照射下，在HO存在的情况下对亚甲基蓝（MB）、罗丹明B（RhB）和甲基橙（MO）等有机染料污染物的光催化降解活性。结果表明，该光催化剂在90 - 100分钟内完全降解了三种染料。与纯CdTiO和CuFeO相比，非均相的CdTiO/CuFeO纳米复合材料表现出显著增强的光催化效率。基于羟基自由基捕获和光致发光（PL）实验的结果，增强的光催化性能主要归因于光生电子 - 空穴对的有效分离以及在CdTiO/CuFeO光催化氧化体系中形成了高活性的羟基自由基（OH）物种。CdTiO/CuFeO纳米复合材料的PL测量也表明光生电子 - 空穴对的分离得到了增强。此外，由于其良好的磁分离性能和优异的化学稳定性，该纳米复合材料可以很容易地用磁铁从污染物溶液中分离和回收，且其光催化活性不会降低。基于这些发现，CdTiO/CuFeO纳米复合材料可能是一种有前途的可见光驱动磁性光催化剂，用于将太阳能转化为化学能以进行环境修复。
