Inorganic salt assisted preparation and photocatalytic activities of iron oxide

• Main Author: Zhao, Han.
• Other Authors: Xue Can
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/53096
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

With water pollution constantly posses risk to life and health of human being, photocatalysts which make good use of abundant sunlight become a promising solution to address this issue. Titania catches a lot of attention from researchers, however, due to its relative large bandgap; it is not so efficient under visible light which accounts for most solar energy on the earth. Iron oxide is a good candidate for photocatalyst as it has small band gap of 2.3 eV. This project aims to study the photoactivity of iron oxide modified by different inorganic salts. Five iron oxides modified by NaCl, CH3COONa, NaBr, NaNO3 and NaF as well as iron oxide reference are prepared through hydrothermal reaction and characterized by XRD, SEM and TEM and finally tested by degrading RHB solution under visible light for 4 hours. It is revealed the iron oxide modified by NaBr shows the best performance as it forms a heterostructure which consist of α-Fe2O3 and γ- Fe2O3 phases. Moreover, through SEM and TEM, the phases and morphologies of other iron oxides are to some extent modified therefore show different photocatalytic activities. From the current results, we can be assured that inorganic salts have ability to affect photoactivity through control over phase, structure and morphology.