Solar-Activated Ag/ZnO Nanostructures for Plasmon-Mediated Photocatalysis: Organic Pollutant Degradation in Water

• Khannakar PK

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Effective treatment employing an in-situ generated Ag/ZnO nanocatalyst is the subject of this investigation. In the process of making catalysts,
the environmentally friendly surfactant starch was used to create plate-shaped zinc oxide nanoparticles. X-Ray Diffraction research confirms
that the as-synthesized catalyst contains hexagonal ZnO and fcc silver. Both the ZnO and Ag/ZnO crystal structures were shown to be correct
by XRD examination, with d-spacings of 0.26 nm and 0.234 nm, respectively. The presence of starch allowed FESEM, EDX, and TEM to
reveal a spherical yet flat plate type shape. The composition's oxygen richness was confirmed by XPS, and band gap energies were shown to
decrease with increasing silver loading using UV-Vis spectrophotometry. Photographs of the plasmonic catalysts' photocatalytic action were
taken using sunlight. Organic dyes including p-nitrophenol (PNP), methylene blue (MB), rhodamine B (RhB), methyl orange (MO), and
bromophenol blue (BPB) were fully degraded in aqueous solutions as seen by absorption spectroscopy. After the third recycle, the catalyst's
properties remained unchanged. This simple catalyst might be a quick and easy technique to cure effuently under the sun.

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