ZrO2/Fe2O3/RGO nanocomposite: Good photocatalyst for dyes degradation

We report a ZrO2/Fe2O3/RGO nanocomposite was synthesized via insitu-hydrothermal method and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), UV-Visible diffuse reflectance spectrophotometer (DRS), Raman, Photoluminescence (PL) and BET analysis to study the structural, morphological and optical properties. FESEM images declares that ZrO2 particles are uniform discs like nanostructure shape with clear facets and narrow size distribution; Fe2O3 were agglomerated, which leads to have completely dispersed with the rGO and forms a ZrO2/Fe2O3/RGO nanocomposite. The elemental composition (Zr, Fe, O and C) of as-prepared ZrO2/Fe2O3/RGO nanocomposite was confirmed using EDX. FTIR and Raman analysis confirmed the GO was reduced into RGO during the synthesis of ZrO2/Fe2O3/RGO nanocomposite. The synthesized catalysts were examined for photo-catalytic activity by the degradation of Congo Red (CR) and Acetophenone (AP) under visible light illumination, these results clearly prompted that ZrO2/Fe2O3/RGO nanocomposite shows a high photodegradation efficiency of CR and AP under visible light illumination than ZrO2/Fe2O3, pure Fe2O3 and pure ZrO2.