Hydrothermal synthesis of Cr2O3/ZnO nanocomposite for environmental applications

This article uses a produced nanocomposite and a solar lamp to explore the photocatalytic breakdown process of the acid fuchsin dye. Hydrothermal techniques were used to create the Cr2O3/ZnO nanocomposite. The characteristics of nanocomposite were studied using various techniques such as “X-ray diffraction (XRD)”, “scanning electron microscopy (SEM)”, and diffuse reflectance spectra to calculate the band gap found to be 2.77eV. The particle size of synthesized Cr2O3/ZnO nanocomposite was calculated using the Scherer equation (47.62 nm). Using 0.13 g 100-1 mL of nanocomposite, dye degradation was carried out in irradiation aqueous suspension solutions with various dye concentrations. The influence of the mass of the nanocomposite, the concentration of Acid Fuchsin dye, and the effect of temperature were examined to determine their effects on the photocatalytic degradation process of this dye. Calculations showed that the activation energy is 31.67 kJ mole-1. Using a UV-Vis spectrophotometer, the irradiated solutions were investigated.