Synthesis, Characterization and Photocatalytic Application of MgZrO3@Fe2O3@ZnO Core-Shell Oxide for the Degradation Nigrosine Dye

Water pollution is one of the serious main global concerns that affect humans and numerous people die due to various diseases caused by contaminated water because of the toxic and carcinogenic nature of dyes in effluents. It is essential to develop an efficient and effective method for wastewater treatment using a highly active and reusable catalyst. Herein we report heterogeneous catalyst MgZrO3@Fe2O3@ ZnO nanoparticles by sol-gel approach. They were characterized by UV-visible diffused reflectance spectroscopy (UV-DRS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Energy dispersive x-ray analysis (EDAX), and High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and selected area diffraction. This characterization confirmed the structure of MgZrO3@Fe2O3@ZnO and also confirmed excellent photocatalytic activity for the decolorization of Nigrosin dye under ambient conditions. The 96±0.5 % degradation was observed within 60 min using 20 ppm Nigrosin dye solution with 0.2 g of MgZrO3@Fe2O3@ZnO core-shell nanoparticles. A mechanistic approach for photodegradation of dye was established by Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LCMS) with the identification of numerous smaller fragment molecule.