Degradation of Methylene Blue Dye in the Presence of Visible Light Using SiO2@α-Fe2O3 Nanocomposites Deposited on SnS2 Flowers

Semiconductor materials have been shown to have good photocatalytic behavior and can be utilized for the photodegradation of organic pollutants. In this work, three-dimensional flower-like SnS2 (tin sulfide) was synthesized by a facile hydrothermal method. Core-shell structured SiO2@α-Fe2O...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Sridharan Balu, Kasimayan Uma, Guan-Ting Pan, Thomas C.-K. Yang, Sayee Kannan Ramaraj
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2018-06-01
Series:Materials
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1944/11/6/1030
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Summary:Semiconductor materials have been shown to have good photocatalytic behavior and can be utilized for the photodegradation of organic pollutants. In this work, three-dimensional flower-like SnS2 (tin sulfide) was synthesized by a facile hydrothermal method. Core-shell structured SiO2@α-Fe2O3 nanocomposites were then deposited on the top of the SnS2 flowers. The as-synthesized nanocomposites were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), UV–Vis Spectroscopy, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area analysis, and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The photocatalytic behavior of the SnS2-SiO2@α-Fe2O3 nanocomposites was investigated by observing the degradation of methylene blue (MB). The results show an effective enhancement of photocatalytic activity for the degradation of MB especially for the 15 wt % SiO2@α-Fe2O3 nanocomposites on SnS2 flowers.
ISSN:1996-1944