MgFe2O4-Fe2O3 heterostructured nanomaterials: Synthesis and photocatalytic study

Abstract

MgFe2O4-Fe2O3 composites nanostructures were synthesized by different wet chemical methods such as: precipitation, reflux and hydrothermal method. XRD confirmed the formation of composite MgFe2O4-Fe2O3 phase by precipitation, reflux methods and single MgFe2O4 phase by hydrothermal method with well crystalline nature. From FTIR study, the shifting of adsorption bands of metal-oxygen bond corresponding to the vibration of tetrahedral and octahedral complexes of MgFe2O4-Fe2O3 composites was observed than single MgFe2O4 phase. From FESEM images, it is observed that the MgFe2O4-Fe2O3 nanocomposites prepared by precipitation method contains very smooth particles with average diameters around 20–40nm, the MgFe2O4-Fe2O3 nanocomposites prepared by reflux method contains both uniform microspheres and flower-like hierarchical nanostructures with thickness around 100–200nm and the MgFe2O4 nanomaterials synthesized by hydrothermal method contains irregular spherical nanoparticles with diameter around 60–100nm. The prepared nanomaterials were used as photocatalysts to degrade methylene blue dye in aqueous media under solar light irradiation. The MgFe2O4-Fe2O3 nanocomposite prepared by precipitation method was regarded as a superb photocatalyst; 0.1g of the photocatalyst performed the degradation of 99.9% of methylene blue dye from 100ml of 10mg/L solution within 120mins of irradiation time.