Fabrication of mesoporous BaTiO3/SnO2 nanorods with highly enhanced photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants

Novel UV-vis-light-driven BaTiO3/SnO2 nanocomposites with three different molar ratios (1%, 3%, 5%) were synthesized by hydrothermal and precipitation deposition methods. The successfully characterized by UV-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), FT-IR spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area analysis (BET) techniques. The lambda(max) of the prepared nanocomposite was highly red shifted from 220 nm to 410 nm compared to the bare metal oxides. The degradation of organic pollutants such as o-Chloroaniline (o-CLA) and methylene blue (MB) were studied using the prepared nanocomposite. The nanocomposite with molar ratio of 3% BaTiO3/SnO2 photocatalyst possesses excellent photocatalytic activity than the nanocomposite with molar ratio 1% BaTiO3/SnO2, 5% BaTiO3/SnO2, and the individual components BaTiO3, SnO2. The band edges of materials have been theoretically calculated on the basis of Mullikan electronegativity of atoms. The effect of operational parameters such as; pollutant concentration, pH, catalyst loading, OH center dot radical trapping and COD (carbon oxygen demand) have been investigated in details. The kinetics of the photodegradation reactions were correlated with the pseudo first-order model. The stability of nanocomposite was examined by recycling experiments. (C) 2017 The Korean Society of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.