Abstract
The heterostructure of ZnO and MOF-46(Zn) was synthesized to improve the photocatalytic performance of ZnO and prove the synergistic theory that presented the coexistence of ZnO and MOF-46(Zn), providing better efficiency than pure ZnO. The heterostructure material was synthesized by using prepared ZnO as a Zn2+ source, which was reacted with 2-aminoterephthalic acid (2-ATP) as a ligand to cover the surface of ZnO with MOF-46(Zn). The ZnO reactant materials were modified by pyrolysis of various morphologies of IRMOF-3 (Zn-MOF) prepared by using CTAB as a morphology controller. The octahedral ZnO obtained at 150 mg of CTAB shows better efficiency for photodegradation, with 85.79% within 3 h and a band gap energy of 3.11 eV. It acts as a starting material for synthesis of ZnO@MOF-46(Zn). The ZnO/MOF-46(Zn) composite was further used as a photocatalyst material in the dye (methylene blue: MB) degradation process, and the performance was compared with that of pure prepared ZnO. The results show that the photocatalytic efficiency with 61.20% in the MB degradation of the heterostructure is higher than that of pure ZnO within 60 min (90.09% within 180 min). The reason for this result may be that the coexistence of ZnO and MOF-46(Zn) can absorb a larger range of energy and reduce the possibility of the electron–hole recombination process.
Highlights
IntroductionPublisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
The results showed that the photocatalytic efficiency depended on the morphology, and Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanosheets were more effective than nanotubes due to their larger surface area
ZnO is used in extensive work, its wide band gap restriction leads to its use in high- energy and low harvesting of light
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. MOFs possess extraordinary properties, such as a large surface area and thermal stability, a particular porosity, a tunable topology and functionality, light absorption ability in the UV-Vis range, rich host–guest chemistry, well-developed pores to make high accessibility of active sites, and Lewis acid sites that they can be tuned by the formation of missing ligand defects These attractive properties have led to numerous fields of work in recent decades in luminescence sensors [23], adsorption/desorption [23], gas storage [24], molecular separation [25], drug delivery [26], and catalysis from the last two properties [27,28,29]. To prove the synergistic properties of the ZnO and MOF-46(Zn) composite and prove that it exhibits better performance than pure ZnO, ZnO@MOF-46(Zn) was used as a photocatalyst for the degradation of dye (methylene blue: MB), and the performance was compared with that of pure ZnO in the aqueous phase with UV irradiation
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