Issue 5, 2009
From the journal:

Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences

Photocatalytic decolourization of dyes on NiO–ZnO nano-composites†

Abdul Hameed,ab   Tiziano Montini,a   Valentina Gombaca  and  Paolo Fornasiero*a  

* Corresponding authors

a Chemistry Department, ICCOM-CNR Trieste Research Unit, INSTM-Trieste Research Unit, Centre of Excellence for Nanostructured Materials, University of Trieste, via L. Giorgieri 1, Trieste, Italy
E-mail: pfornasiero@units.it
Fax: +39 040 5583903
Tel: +39 040 5583973

b Centre for Nanosciences, National Centre for Physics, Islamabad, Pakistan

Abstract

NiO–ZnO nanocomposite photocatalysts were synthesized by co-precipitation/co-gel formation techniques using potassium hydroxide (KOH), sodium carbonate (Na2CO3) and oxalic acid (H2C2O4) as precipitating agents. X-Ray diffraction (XRD) analysis was employed for the determination of crystallite size and phase purity, while BET surface areas were estimated by nitrogen physisorption analysis. The photocatalytic activities of the NiO–ZnO nanocomposites, evaluated using the photo-decolourization of two structurally different dyes, methyl orange and methylene blue, were correlated with the variation in the crystallite size of the constituents of the composites. All the three synthesized nanocomposites showed appreciable activity for the decolourization of dyes. NiO–ZnO nanocomposite derived by KOH exhibited maximum activity for the decolourization of both the dyes and the decolourization rate of methylene blue was found to be comparable with that of Degussa P-25 TiO2. Finally, the activity of the most active NiO–ZnO composite with relatively large crystallite sizes was compared with the pure components and their physical mixture, synthesized by the identical synthetic route, in the same molar ratio as that of nanocomposite.

Graphical abstract: Photocatalytic decolourization of dyes on NiO–ZnO nano-composites

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/B817396F
Article type
Paper
Submitted
03 Oct 2008
Accepted
25 Feb 2009
First published
12 Mar 2009

Photochem. Photobiol. Sci., 2009,8, 677-682

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Photocatalytic decolourization of dyes on NiO–ZnO nano-composites

A. Hameed, T. Montini, V. Gombac and P. Fornasiero, Photochem. Photobiol. Sci., 2009, 8, 677 DOI: 10.1039/B817396F

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