Abstract
Herein, a facile green synthesis route was reported for the synthesis of Ag–ZnO nanocomposites using potato residue by simple and cost effective combustion route and investigated the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye. In the preparation potato extract functioned as a biogenic reducing as well as stabilizing agent for the reduction of Ag + , thus eliminating the need for conventional reducing/stabilizing agents. Ag–ZnO nanocomposites with different Ag mass fractions ranging from 2 to 10% were characterized by using XRD, FT-IR, XPS, SEM, TEM, and UV–Vis spectroscopy. XRD analysis revealed that the as prepared Ag–ZnO nanocomposites possessed high crystallinity with hexagonal wurtzite structure. TEM and SEM images showed that the Ag–ZnO nanocomposites in size ranging from 15 to 25 nm have been obtained, and the particle size was found to increase with the increase in percentage of Ag. FTIR results confirmed the characteristics band of ZnO along with the Ag bands. XPS analysis revealed a pair of doublet with peaks corresponding to Ag and a singlet with peaks corresponding to ZnO. With the increase of concentration of Ag in ZnO, the intensity of NBE emission in the PL spectra was observed to be decrease, resulted to the high photocatalytic activity. Photocatalytic properties of Ag–ZnO nanocomposites evaluated against the MB dye under visible-light irradiation showed superior photodegradation of ~ 96% within 80 min for 2% Ag–ZnO nanocomposites. The apparent reaction rate constant for 2% Ag–ZnO nanocomposites was higher than that of other nanocomposites, which proved to be the best photocatalyst for the maximum degradation of MB. Furthermore, various functional parameters such as dosing, reaction medium, concentration variation were performed on it for better understanding. The enhancement in photocatalytic degradation might be due to the presence of Ag nanoparticles on the surface of ZnO by minimizing the recombination of photo induced charge carriers in the nanocomposites.
Highlights
Clean and fresh water, which are unevenly distributed on the face of earth, are great need for living beings and our immediate natural environment
This could be due to the fact that the ionic radius of Ag + (126 pm) is larger than that of Z n2+(74 pm), which resulted to the formation of metallic Ag, and no shift in the peak positions of Ag–ZnO nanocomposites indicates that Ag particles are positioned on the surfaces of well crystalline ZnONPs47
Different nanoparticles of Ag–ZnO NPs were successfully synthesized through environmental friendly novel green method using potato waste
Summary
Clean and fresh water, which are unevenly distributed on the face of earth, are great need for living beings and our immediate natural environment. Among various reported techniques for treatment of wastewater[9,10,11], photocatalytic process by the application of nano-ranged materials, complete mineralization of the dyes over its surface, is reliable, high sensitive with reasonable costs and environmentally safe technique[12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21] In this process, the nanomaterials illuminated by light of the proper wavelength generate active species, which oxidize the organic compounds dissolved in water. ZnO with various morphologies comprised 0D, 1D, 2D, and 3 D29–32 as well as d opants[27,33,34] (metal and non-metal dopants) have been prepared with high photocatalytic efficiency
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