Characterization of structural, optical and photocatalytic properties of silver modified hematite (α-Fe2O3) nanocatalyst

• Published in: Journal of alloys and compounds 2022-05, Vol.904, p.164006, Article 164006
• Main Authors: Kumar, Sandeep, Kumar, Abhishek, Malhotra, Tania, Verma, Sakshi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adsorption; Alpha rays; Chemical structure; Crystallites; Current carriers; Doping; Dyes; Energy gap; Ferric oxide; Fourier transforms; Hematite; Infrared spectroscopy; Iron oxides; Metal oxide semiconductor; Nanoparticles; Optical properties; Parameter estimation; Photocatalysis; Photoelectrons; Photoluminescence; Raman spectroscopy; Room temperature; Silver; Spectrum analysis; Structural analysis; X ray photoelectron spectroscopy; X ray powder diffraction; X-ray diffraction; α-Fe2O3
• ISSN: 0925-8388; 1873-4669
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jallcom.2022.164006

•Iron oxide nanoparticles doped with (0%, 3% and 5%) Ag were synthesized with the co-precipitation method.•Structural, optical, electronic and photocatalytic properties of the nanoparticles were investigated.•Chemical states of Ag was Ag0 and Ag+ on the surface of doped α-Fe2O3 photocatalysts.•Improved surface adsorption and photocatalysis of dye with Ag doping in Hematite nanocatalyst. In this paper, pure and silver doped (3% and 5%) α-Fe2O3 semiconductor nanoparticles were synthesized with co-precipitation from Fe2+, Fe3+ and Ag+-(doped samples) containing salts and subsequent thermal annealing at 400 °C of the precipitate. The structural, optical (absorption and emission), and surface electronic properties of α-Fe2O3 nanoparticles and the effect of silver doping were characterized by powder x-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, photoluminescence and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Powder x-ray diffraction confirms the synthesis of pure alpha phase and mixed phases of iron oxide for undoped and Ag doped samples, respectively. The crystallite size and structural parameters were estimated with Debye Scherer and Williamson-Hall methods. The bandgap of iron oxide semiconductor nanoparticle samples was calculated by Tauc’s plot, showing the marginal increase in the bandgap with Ag content. To investigate the effect of Ag doping in the recombination rate of photogenerated charge-carrier, room temperature photoluminescence spectra of the nanoparticles were recorded at the excitation wavelength of 450 nm. Vibrational spectroscopy was utilized to find the chemical structure changes of iron oxide nanoparticles on Ag doping. Also, the dye degradation efficiency which includes surface adsorption and photocatalysis of dye with the iron oxide nanocatalysts is improved with Ag doping.