Synthesis of ZnO/CdO thin film for catalytic degradation of 4-nitrophenol

Nd:YAG pulsed laser was used to prepare ZnO/CdO thin film by doping the CdO thin film with ZnO to produce ZnO/CdO via simultaneous pulsed laser deposition technique of both targets at 500 degrees C. The optical, structural, morphological properties were studied by using UV-visible spectroscopy technique, Xray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscope. The crystalline structure study showed that the ablation of Cd metal leads to produce CdO structure, while the laser ablation of Zn and Cd leads to produce ZnO/CdO structure. In addition, there are no other characteristic peaks that appeared from impurities that confirmed the high purity of the sample. The energy band gap was found to be 2.83 eV and 2.51 eV for CdO thin film and their embedding with ZnO structure, respectively. Imaging by SEM showed that the average grain size of the prepared samples in both cases ranged in 50 - 100 nm. Finally, the capability of the prepared samples was investigated as a catalytic degradation material to degrade 4-nitrophenol. The efficiency of the CdO thin film was converted after embedding with ZnO from 5% to 98.3% in 200 minutes. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.