Structural, optical, electrical, and morphological studies of rGO anchored direct dual-Z-scheme ZnO-Sm2O3-Y2O3 heterostructured nanocomposite: An efficient photocatalyst under sunlight

In this work, novel sunlight driven photocatalyst direct dual Z-scheme ZnO-Sm2O3-Y2O3@rGO heterostructured nanocomposite was synthesized through co-precipitation technique. The obtained products were characterized by XRD, FTIR, SEM, I-V, and UV-vis to investigate structural, morphological, electrical, and optical properties. The photocatalytic activity of ZnO-Sm2O3-Y2O3@rGO nanocomposite against MB dye is approximately 98.5% at 75 min under sunlight irradiation, which is higher than simple ZnO-Sm2O3-Y2O3 nanocomposite 78.0%. The enhanced photocatalytic properties are attributed to the presence of Z-scheme and the use of rGO, which acts as electrons/interfacial mediators and reduced electron/hole pair recombination. Furthermore, the photocatalytic experiments were also performed by varying conditions using ZnO-Sm2O3-Y2O3@rGO nanocomposite. The trapping experiments and reusability test was also carried out.