Magnesium doped zinc oxide as an efficient solar photocatalyst

Abstract

Among different semiconductor photocatalyst, Zinc oxide (ZnO) is an efficient photocatalyst with high photocatalytic performance in UV region. In this study an attempt has been made to extend the absorbance of ZnO towards visible region through Magnesium (Mg) doping. Pristine and Mg doped ZnO nanomaterials were synthesized via a simple co-precipitation method. XRD spectra reveals that the samples are highly crystalline with crystallite distribution in nano-range. FESEM micrograph reveals the formation of nanosheet like structure for both pristine and Mg doped ZnO whereas EDS spectra confirms the doping. Mg doped ZnO showed an elevated absorption towards visible region compared to the pristine one. Moreover, the trap centers of the samples were identified with the help of PL analyses. The photocatalytic performance of the pristine and doped samples were tested using methylene blue as probe pollutant under solar irradiation in terms of rate constant and photonic efficiency. Mg doped ZnO showed superior phot...