Zwitterionic surfactant assisted synthesis of Fe doped SnO2-SiO2 nanocomposite with enhanced photocatalytic activity under sun light

作者：Afzaal Amna; Farrukh Muhammad Akhyar^*

来源：Materials Science and Engineering B-Solid State Materials for Advanced Technology, 2017, 223: 167-177.

DOI：10.1016/j.mseb.2017.06.015

• Nanocomposites
• Sol-gel method
• Thermal degradation
• Optical properties
• Photocatalyst

Silica xerogel was extracted from the Rice Husk Ash (RHA) through alkaline extraction method. SnO2-SiO2 and Fe doped SnO2-SiO2 nanocomposites were synthesized via sol-gel and hydrothermal methods respectively using zwitterionic surfactant i.e., N-dodecyl-N,N-dimethyl-3-ammonio-1-propane sulfate (SB3-12). Coats-Redfern method was used to determine the activation energy, enthalpy, entropy, Gibb's free energy and pre-exponential factor for thermal degradation of nanocomposite using TGA data. The optical properties of nanocomposites were studied and band-gap was measured using Wood and Tauc expression. The red shift was observed in Fe doped SnO2-SiO2 nanocomposite having band gap of 5.2 eV. It was found that smaller bandgap of Fe doped SnO2-SiO2 photocatalyst resulted a prominent increase in photocatalytic activity of nanocomposite against Methylene Blue (MB) under illumination of sunlight.

• 出版日期2017-9