Harvesting visible light for enhanced catalytic degradation of wastewater using TiO@FeO embedded on two dimensional reduced graphene oxide nanosheets.

Carbon-integrated binary metal oxide semiconductors have gained prominence in the last decade as a better material for photocatalytic wastewater treatment technology. In this regard, this research describes the investigation of the binary metal oxide TiO@FeO embedded on reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanosheets synthesized through a combination of sol-gel, chemical precipitation, and Hummer's processes. Besides, the catalyst is applied for the photocatalytic degradation of organic chlorophenol pollutants. The characterized diffraction results showed the peak broadening of the rGO-TiO@FeO composite formed with tetragonal and cubic structures having small crystallite sizes. The TEM observation shows an enormous miniature of TiO@FeO nanospheres spread on the folded 2D-rGO nanosheets with a large BET surface area. The XPS result holds the mixed phases of FeO and FeO. Finally, the catalyst demonstrated a low band gap with extended light absorption towards visible light irradiation. The synergistic interactions between Fe and Fe improved the visible light activity due to the incorporation of rGO, and also possessed good recycling capacity. The increased mobility of electrons at the interfaces of TiO and FeO due to the mixing of rGO results in the separation of charge carriers by elevating the photocatalytic degradation efficiency of chlorophenol.