Morphology and photocatalytic activity of porous (In, Mg) co-doped ZnO nanoparticles

In the present work, we have used a facile chemical co-precipitation method to prepare porous (In, Mg) co-doped ZnO nanoparticles. X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), transmission electronic microscopy (TEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and UV-vis spectrophotometer characterizations were carried out for microstructural, morphological, and optical properties of samples studies. In-doping and (In, Mg) co-doping effect on the photocatalytic activities of ZnO was investigated. The results indicated that ZnO exhibits a high photo-degradation capability for OR-II under UV-light within 240 min. The degradation efficiency of OR-II after co-doping effect clearly demonstrates the excellent performance obtained with the powder particles made of 15 wt % Mg content. It showed an improvement in the photocatalytic activity by comparison to pure ZnO. In fact, the related sample shows that almost 90% degradation of OR-II occurred within 20 min. This remarkable catalytic performance opens the way for further exploration of the co-doped oxides in this application field. (C) 2017 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.