Visible- light active zinc doped cobalt oxide (Zn-Co3O4) nanoparticles for photocatalytic and photochemical activity

Abstract

Synthetic dyes are environmentally hazardous that are chemically and physically stable used widely in the textile industry, these synthetic dyes accumulate in industrial effluents and wastewater due to their water stability and solubility, and photodegradation of organic pollutants. Cobalt Oxide is an environmentally friendly and abundant semiconductor with p-type conductivity and a wide bandgap. Because of these properties, Co3O4 is a promising material for a variety of applications. Spinel Zn-doped cobalt oxide (ZnxCo3-xO4) nanoparticles have piqued up the interest of researchers due to their exceptional combination of properties, particularly magnetic properties, and these properties are pushing boundaries to be a suitable candidate material in the field of electronics. ZnxCo3-xO4 (x = 0.05, 0.1 & 0.3) powders had been synthesized using a scalable co-precipitation technique yielding nanostructured spinel cobalt oxide particles. Eco-friendly techniques were used to fine-tune the morphology, particle size, and reaction rate of the nanoparticles (NPS). X-ray diffraction (XRD) showed the incorporation of Zn2+ ions inside Co3O4 host lattice, in settlement with FESEM analysis. FTIR found a moderate extrude in major bands υ1 and υ2 with inside the frequency variety of 400–4000 cm−1, because of stretching vibrations on the A and B-sites respectively. The optical band hole (Eg) from Tauc plots become observed with growing Zn2+ content material. VSM confirmed the transformation of magnetic behaviour from paramagnetic to ferromagnetic because of Zn2+ ions doping. The supreme photodegradation rate was remarked to be 97 percent with a period of 120 min, and this improved photocatalytic enforcement due to the effective evaluation of electron-hole recombination by the Co3O4 NPs. Additionally, photo-electrochemical studies of Zn-Co3O4 revealed a faster migration of photoexcited charge-carriers. As a result, zinc doped cobalt oxide nanoparticles have proven to be an advantageous material for photocatalytic degradation of organic contaminants.