Magnetically separable Fe3O4@SiO2@TiO2 nanostructures supported by neodymium(III): fabrication and enhanced photocatalytic activity for degradation of organic pollution

چکیده مقاله

In this contribution, neodymium ion doped Fe3O4@SiO2@TiO2 magnetic nanoparticles with uniform magnetic cores have been successfully synthesized for the first time. The Fe3O4@SiO2@TiO2@Nd nanoparticles were obtained using photodeposition method and the crystal structure, chemical properties and surface morphology of the novel photocatalyst were characterized by XRD, EDS, SEM, TEM, DRS, FT-IR and VSM techniques. The magnetic core covered by neodymium shell within was about 2–5 nm thickness and the core–shell particles size was about 65 nm. Incorporated of neodymium in TiO2 nanoparticles reduce charge recombination and increases the accessible surface area of titanium dioxide nanoparticles. Nd carrier demonstrated an electron-scavenging ability to mitigate electron–hole pair recombination, which can be improved the photocatalytic activity. In comparison to Fe3O4@SiO2@TiO2, Fe3O4@SiO2@TiO2@Nd exhibited higher photocatalytic activity for the degradation of rhodamine B (RhB) as a cationic dye and methyl orange (MO) as anionic dye under UV–Visible light irradiation (93.4% of RhB and 79.2% of MO were degraded after 90 min). More importantly, the magnetic catalyst displayed good magnetic response and recoverable after seven cycles. The results demonstrate that synthesized nanocatalyst shows a high stability, recoverability and highly efficiency for purification of wastewater.