Synthesis, structural and optical properties of Ag doped ZnO nanoparticles with enhanced photocatalytic properties by photo degradation of organic dyes

Abstract

In present paper chemical route based synthesis of Ag doped ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) by co-precipitation method is reported to develop ZnO NPs for photo catalytic application. XRD confirms the structural purity of ZnO NPs. FESEM and TEM study reveals the surface and ultra structure morphology of NPs. EDAX study confirms the purity and homogeneity of NPs. The Ag/ZnO NPs with different weight percentage of Ag relative to ZnO were applied under visible light irradiation for evaluating heterogeneous photo catalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) and Brilliant blue (BB) respectively. The presence of Ag in ZnO enhance MB and BB dye degradation effectiveness from 96.78 to 98.66 and 82.15 to 97.36% for pure ZnO and maximum Ag doped ZnO (x = 0.1) respectively. In comparison of MB and BB final degradation ability, MB dyes have more effective photo catalytic efficiency towards different oxidizing species to degradation process.