Chromium doped iron oxide nanoparticles and physical properties prepared from logas natural sand and their application in Photo-Fenton degradation of methylene blue dye

Abstract

Chromium-doped iron oxide nanoparticles were preparedby ball milling method. The iron oxide nanoparticles were extracted from Logas-Kuansing natural sand. The structural, magnetic, morphological and optical properties of these nanoparticles were investigated using X-ray diffraction, vibration sample magnetometer (VSM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and UV-Vis spectroscopy. The X-ray diffraction revealed that undoped and chromium doped samples are hexagonal structure however, the crystalline size decreases from 38 nm to 35, 32, 30, 28 nm for the undoped and chromium doped samples with concentration of 5, 10, 15 and 20 wt.%, respectively.Magnetic properties have been analyzed by hysteresis loops using VSM. The coercivity, saturation magnetization and remanence magnetization have been found in the range of 138-254 Oe, 0.820-0.621 emu/g and 0.163-0.123 emu/g, respectively. Particle shape and size have been examined by SEM. The SEM image confirmed that the size of chromium-doped iron oxide particles is in the range of nanometer particles. The optical band gap was estimated using the Tuch relation and it decreases from 2.07, 2.01, 1.97, 1,95 and 1.93 eV for undoped and 5, 10, 15 and 20 wt.% chromium doped iron oxide nanoparticles, respectively. The Photo Fenton degradation of methylene blue dye under visible light irradiation increases with degradation percentages 98.69 and 99.06% for chromium concentration of 10 and 20 wt.%, respectively, as compared to that of 98.27% for undoped iron oxide nanoparticles. This work suggests that the prepared iron oxide nanoparticles are attractive photo Fenton catalysts for the degradation of methylene blue in the water.