Preparation, Characterization And Application Of Semiconductor ZnO Composites

With the development of economy and society, energy pinch and environmental problems have been the significant problems for people to be confronted with and solve. Water pollution brought by the organics endangered people's health seriously. Because semiconductor photocatalyst has some good qualities, such as room temperature reaction, making use of solar energy directly, high efficiency, low selection and without second pollution, attention has been paid globally to semiconductor photocatalyst as an ideal hanlding environmental pollution technology.In our experiment, the bifunctional magnetic-optical Fe3O4/ZnO nanocomposites were prepared by simple solvothermal and coprecipitate methods. The structure and pattern of composites was tested by XRD, TEM, SEM, IR, U-Vis, PL and VSM. The photocatalytic degradation property of the composites was tested by degradating the methyl orange dyes.In our studies, the investment on the photocatalytic degradation of MO over Fe3O4/ZnO nanocomposites, stressing on the effect of the operating variables such as catalyst doses, initial concentration and pH on the decolorization rate was reported. The results showed that the degradation percentage of MO was about 93.6% for 1h when the amount of catalysts was 0.51g L-1 and initial concentration of MO was 6.0x10-5 mol L-1 in the pH=7 solution. Moreover, the kinetics of photocatalytic degradation reaction could be expressed by the first-order reaction kinetic model. Furthermore, the Fe3O4/ZnO nanocomposites could be also served as convenient recyclable photocatalysts because of their magnetic properties.Besides, we also prepared ZnO/Ag composites. We also characterized them by a series of methods. And we tested their degradation efficiency by decolouring MO.Nanocomposites were prepared by simple solvothermal and coprecipitate methods in our report. A series of the characterizations manifested that the combination of Fe3O4 and Ag with ZnO nanoparticles was successful and the structure and pattern were fine. The research indicated that the degradation efficiency of ZnO could be improved in our study.