Photocatalytic Oxidation of Alcohols Over Magnetically Recoverable Gold Supported Iron Oxide Nanoparticles

A one-pot simple and efficient synthetic route for the synthesis of Au-loaded Fe2O3 nanoparticles was developed, and this material's photocatalytic activity for visible light assisted oxidation of alcohols and degradation of organic dye were studied. As-synthesized nanostructured catalyst was characterised by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), SEM-mapping, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), N-2 adsorption desorption isotherm (BET), and inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES). It was observed that 5-10 nm Au-nanoparticles supported on 10-80 nm Fe2O3 shows boomerang-shaped nanoparticle. Gold loading of 1 wt% shows high conversion and selectivity towards the target product aldehyde. The synthesized nanomaterial also proved to be an excellent photocatalyst for degradation of organic dyes such as methylene blue (MB) and rhodamine B (RhB). The catalyst proved to be noteworthy as it does not loss in its catalytic activity even after five cycles of reuse.