Duan Kaijiao, Que Tingting, Koppala Sivasankar, Balan Ramdas, Lokesh Budigi, Pillai Rahul, David Selvaraj, Karthikeyan Parasuraman, Ramamoorthy Sangeetha, Lekshmi I C, Kemacheevakul Patiya, Padmavathy Nagarajan, Munusamy Sathishkumar
School of Chemistry and Environment, Yunnan Minzu University Kunming 650505 Yunnan China.
Saveetha School of Engineering, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences (SIMATS) Chennai 602105 Tamil Nadu India
RSC Adv. 2022 Jun 6;12(26):16544-16553. doi: 10.1039/d2ra01690g. eCollection 2022 Jun 1.
In the present study, the n-SnO/p-CuFeO (p-CFO) complex was prepared by a two-step process. p-CFO synthesized by the molten salt method was coated with SnO synthesized by a facile chemical precipitation method. The formation of n-SnO/p-CFO was confirmed by powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images showed that the sharp edges of uncoated pyramid-like p-CFO particles were covered by a thick layer of n-SnO on coated p-CFO particles. The complete absence of Cu and only 3 wt% Fe on the surface of the n-p complex observed in the elemental analysis using energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) on the n-p complex confirmed the presence of a thick layer of SnO on the p-CFO surface. Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) was employed to elucidate the bandgap engineering. The n-SnO/p-CFO complex and p-CFO showed 87% and 58.7% methylene blue (MB) degradation in 120 min under sunlight, respectively. The efficiency of the n-p complex recovered after 5 cycles (73.5%) and was found to be higher than that of the uncoated p-CFO (58.7%). The magnetically separable property of the n-p complex was evaluated by using vibration sample magnetometry (VSM) measurements and it was confirmed that the prepared photocatalyst can be easily recovered using an external magnet. The study reveals that the prepared complex could be a potential candidate for efficient photodegradation of organic dyes under sunlight due to its efficient recovery and reusability owing to its magnetic properties.
在本研究中，通过两步法制备了n-SnO/p-CuFeO（p-CFO）复合物。采用熔盐法合成的p-CFO用简便的化学沉淀法合成的SnO进行包覆。通过粉末X射线衍射（PXRD）证实了n-SnO/p-CFO的形成。扫描电子显微镜（SEM）图像显示，未包覆的金字塔状p-CFO颗粒的尖锐边缘在包覆的p-CFO颗粒上被一层厚厚的n-SnO覆盖。在对n-p复合物进行能量色散X射线光谱（EDX）元素分析时，在n-p复合物表面观察到完全没有Cu且只有3 wt%的Fe，这证实了p-CFO表面存在一层厚厚的SnO。采用漫反射光谱（DRS）来阐明带隙工程。n-SnO/p-CFO复合物和p-CFO在阳光下120分钟内分别使亚甲基蓝（MB）降解了87%和58.7%。n-p复合物在5次循环后回收率为73.5%，且发现其效率高于未包覆的p-CFO（58.7%）。通过振动样品磁强计（VSM）测量评估了n-p复合物的磁分离性能，证实了所制备的光催化剂可以使用外部磁铁轻松回收。该研究表明，所制备的复合物由于其磁性而具有高效回收和可重复使用性，可能是在阳光下高效光降解有机染料的潜在候选物。
