Synthesis of Fe<sub>3</sub>O<sub>4</sub>/TiO<sub>2</sub>-Co Nanocomposite as Model of Photocatalyst with Magnetic Properties

Abstract

Synthesis and characterization of Fe3O4/TiO2-Co as magnetic photocatalyst had been done. The research was started with the preparation of magnetite through co-precipitation and sonication system, followed by preparation of Co-dopedTiO2 using sol-gel method and then mixed both of them with a ratio of Fe3O4:TiO2 1:3; 1:9; 1:15 (FT3, FT9, FT15) and ended by calcination. The product was characterised by using Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometer (FTIR), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), scanning electron microscope-energy dispersive X-ray spectrophotometer (SEM-EDX), UV-Specular reflectance spectrophotometer (SR-UV) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The resulting material showed a maximum value of band gap energy at 2.83 eV in FT3. The effect of Fe3O4:TiO2 ratio known can be affected the magnetic moment and showed the optimum result 2.0 emu/g in FT3. The magnetic character of Fe3O4/TiO2-Co also known can be affected by the magnetite crystalline size from the composites composition.