Abstract
AbstractHerein, an easy co‐precipitation method was adopted to fabricate Al‐doped ZnO nanoflakes as a photocatalyst to remove noxious organic dye from industrial waste. The silica (SiO2) additive, owing to its network structure and excessive hydroxyl groups (Si‐OH), has a great potential to capture dye molecules in its porous network. Application studies have shown that the Al‐doped ZnO/SiO2 nanohybrid is more suitable for practical application because it eliminates almost 95 % of methylene blue (MB) dye after 120 minutes of exposure to solar light irradiation. The exceptional photodegradation efficiency of the Al‐doped ZnO/SiO2 nanohybrid can be accredited to its narrower optical band gap, distinctive texture, hybrid composition, and good dye holding ability. The Al‐doped ZnO nanoflakes exhibited a superior photocurrent response that was 4.60 times more than the bare ZnO response. Furthermore, EIS and Mott‐Schottky studies reveal that the Al‐doped ZnO catalyst facilitates the effective charge separation/transfer process and impedes electron‐hole pair recombination, resulting in enhanced photocatalytic activity .
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