Abstract
Abstract In this contribution, an efficient and simple two-step hybrid electrochemical-thermal route was developed for the synthesis of cubic shaped Zn2SnO4 (ZTO) nanoparticles using aqueous sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) and sodium stannate (Na2SnO3) electrolyte. The sacrificial Zn was used as anode and cathode in an undivided cell under galvanostatic mode at room temperature. The bath concentration and current density were respectively varied from 30 to 120 mmol and 0.05 to 1.5 A/dm2. The electrochemically generated precursor was calcined for an hour at different range of temperature from 60 to 600°C. The crystallite sizes in the range of 24-53 nm were calculated based on Debye-Scherrer equation. Scanning electron microscope and transmission electron microscopy results reveal that all the particles have cubic morphology with diameter of 40–50 nm. The as-prepared ZTO samples showed higher catalytic activity towards the degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye, and 90% degradation was found for the sample calcined at 600°C, which is greater than that of commercial TiO2-P25 photocatalysts. The photodegradation efficiency of ZTO samples was found to be a function of exposure time and the dye solution pH value. These results indicate that the ZTO nanoparticles may be employed to remove dyes from wastewater.
Highlights
Metal metal-oxide nanostructured materials have been attracted much attention due to their prominent properties and potential applications in heterogeneous catalysis, optoelectronics, metallurgy, thin film coating, fine ceramic composites and photocatalysts [1]
We focus on the bulk synthesis of cubic shaped ZTO nanoparticles with a hybrid electrochemical-thermal route without using any template or surfactant at room temperature
Synthesized ZTO nanoparticles of varying sizes were added to 100 ml dye solution (10 ppm), with continuous stir for 2 hr for homogeneity. 100 ml of the solution (ZTO and methylene blue (MB)) was taken in the beaker under continuous stir to ensure the uniform suspension of the catalyst
Summary
Metal metal-oxide nanostructured materials have been attracted much attention due to their prominent properties and potential applications in heterogeneous catalysis, optoelectronics, metallurgy, thin film coating, fine ceramic composites and photocatalysts [1]. Large number of methods have been developed for the preparation of ZTO, such as thermal evaporation [23,24], high temperature calcination [12,25], solgel synthesis [26,27], mechanical grinding [28] and hydrothermal reaction [6,10,11,18,29,30,31] Among these methods, the electrochemical method has aroused a considerable interest in the synthesis of nanosized metal metal-oxide powder and films because of its simplicity, low temperature operation process and viability of commercial production. The optimum conditions for generation of ZTO nanoparticles were proposed
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