Study on the Photocatalytic Activity of Metal Oxide Nanoparticles towards the Degradation of Some Organic Dyes

Abstract

The present study involves the successful synthesis of zinc oxide and tin oxide nanoparticles by green and chemical co-precipitation methods respectively. The synthesized samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and UV-visible absorption techniques. XRD analysis confirms the formation of hexagonal wurtzite structure of ZnO and pure cassiterite rutile tetragonal phase of SnO2. UV-visible spectroscopic study confirms the absorption of UV light by samples. The photocatalytic activities of both samples on Methylene blue (MB) and Malachite green (MG) dyes were analyzed and their corresponding kinetic modelings were studied. It is observed that SnO2 shows better degradation activity compared to ZnO.