Synthesis and optical properties of citric acid (CA) doped ZnFe2O4 hybrid nanocomposite

Using the sol-gel method, ZnFe2O4 and Citric Acid (CA) doped ZnFe2O4 nanosized hybrid nanocomposite was successfully synthesized. Our study investigated the structural and optical properties of synthesized nanoparticles (NPs) using various techniques, including XRD (X-ray diffraction), FTIR (Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy), UV-Visible analysis, and photoluminescence. Rietveld refinement of X-Ray Diffraction data of the samples revealed that the cubic structure (spinel phase) with Fd3m space group is present in the samples. According to Debye-Scherrer's equation, the average crystal sizes of pure and CA-doped ZnFe2O4 crystals are 32.86 nm and 15.24 nm, respectively. In FTIR data, slightly shifted vibrational modes were revealed as the surface functionality. Further, few IR modes are missing while new ones appear after CA-doping, indicating that citrate modified ferrite NPs were successfully formed. Photocatalytic activity of ZnFe2O4 is good under UV-visible and visible illumination. By Tauc plot method. The optical properties demonstrate that the absorption in the visible region and the optical band gap calculated by Tauc's plot are 1.66 and 4.27 eV for pure and doped ZnFe2O4, respectively. Copyright (C) 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.