LDH/Cu-α-Fe₂O₃, LDH/Ni-α-Fe₂O₃, and LDH/Mn-α-Fe₂O₃ as nanophotocatalysts for photocatalytic degradation of reactive red 198 under a mercury-vapor lamp

Abstract

Co-precipitation as a successful assay was chosen for the preparation of transition metals (M = Cu, Ni, and Mn) doped on iron oxide nanoparticles (Fe₂O₃). In this study, active and stable LDH/Cu-α-Fe₂O₃, LDH/Ni-α-Fe₂O₃, and LDH/Mn-α-Fe₂O₃ composites (LDH = layered double hydroxide) were prepared via co-precipitation assay and characterized using spectroscopic methods. Their photocatalytic performance was evaluated by degradation of Reactive red 198 under mild conditions. The results showed that LDH/Cu-α-Fe₂O₃ composite shows the best photocatalytic activity with respect to the others with 97% yield by degrading 40 ppm of Reactive red 198 in 165 min. By investigating several kinetic models of the degradation process, it was found that RR-198 degradation fitted with pseudo-first order. Thus, the photocatalytic performance of synthesized nanocomposites is an efficient catalyst for environmental treatment and energy conversion.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Fe₂O₃ photocatalyst
• degradation
• reactive red 198
• Zn/Fe layered double hydroxide (LDH)

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the support of this work by the University of Birjand.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there is not any conflict of interests regarding the publication of this manuscript. In addition, the ethical issues, including plagiarism, informed consent, misconduct, data fabrication and/or falsification, double publication and/or submission, and redundancy has been completely observed by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

We gratefully acknowledge the support of this work by the University of Birjand.