Synthesis, characterization and photocatalytic performance of modified ZnO nanoparticles with SnO2 nanoparticles

We synthesize the ZnO-SnO2 hybrid with different amount of SnO2 nanoparticles and study the photocatalytic performance of them for photocatalytic oxidation of methyl orange (MO) according to the statistical analysis for the first time. The ZnO-SnO2 hybrids have been characterized by XRD, FTIR, TEM and UV-vis spectroscopy. XRD results reveal that the crystalline structure of SnO2 with tetragonal structure and ZnO with hexagonal wurtzite structure is formed in the all synthesized hybrids. FTIR analysis emphasizes the existence of ZnO and SnO2 nanoparticles in the all synthesized samples. TEM results show that the ZnO nanoparticles are modified using SnO2 nanoparticles. The results of UV-vis spectrophotometer reveal that the photocatalytic degradation of MO increases with increasing amount of SnO2 nanoparticles in the hybrid. Meanwhile, weight fraction and irradiation of UV dependence study also depict that the photocatalytic degradation of MO enhance with time and weight fraction of hybrid. The statistical analysis results reveal that the basic parameters and their interaction have a reasonable influence on the photocatalytic activity of the both hybrids.