Novel Platycladus orientalis-shaped Fe-doped ZnO hierarchical nanoflower decorated with Ag nanoparticles for photocatalytic application

The Ag/Fe-doped ZnO composites were designed by controllable intergration of the three strategies of hierarchical assembly, Fe doping, and Ag loading. The 3D Fe-doped ZnO hierarchical nanoflowers were firstly constructed with Platycladus orientalis-shaped petals via a hydrothermal method, and then Ag na-noparticles were anchored on the surface of Fe-doped ZnO nanoflowers through impregnation/reduction of silver nitrate solution. The samples were characterized by using XRD, SEM, TEM, HRTEM, XPS, Raman spectra, BET, UV-vis DRS, PL, EIS, Mott-Schottky plots, and photocurrent response. The results showed that Fe doping increased BET surface area and oxygen vacancies of ZnO, Ag loading produced the LSP absorption at similar to 530 nm, Fe doping and Ag loading together extended the visible light absorption and facilitated the separation of photogenerated carriers, which favors photocatalytic activity of ZnO. The maximum degradation efficiency of 92.3% for MO was achieved after visible light irradiation for 80 min when the feed atom ratio of Fe to Zn was 1.2% and Ag loading was 4 wt% of Fe-doped ZnO. Four cycle tests had little effect on the morphology and structure of Ag/Fe-doped ZnO, suggesting good cycling stability. The photocatalytic mechanism was elucidated based on the scavenger experiments and energy bands alignment. (C) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Ag/Fe-doped ZnO composites were designed by integrating hierarchical assembly, Fe doping, and Ag loading, leading to high photocatalytic activity for efficient degradation of MO dye under visible light irradiation.