Síntese e caracterização de ZnO pelo método de Pechini para aplicação em fotocatálise

Abstract

ZnO nanoparticles were synthesized using the Pechini method and studied the effect of the annealing temperature in order to evaluate their photocatalytic activity. The structural and morphological properties of the ZnO samples were characterized by thermogravimetric (TG) analysis, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS). The XRD technique obtained the wurtzite hexagonal crystal structure and the presence of a single phase of ZnO for all samples. The SEM revealed that the morphologies of the samples change from near-spherical to nanorods with annealing the temperature of calcination. Photocatalysis tests were based on the degradation of the methylene blue (AM) dye from ZnO nanoparticles under the natural sunlight and artificial UV light. ZnO nanoparticles calcined at 400 oC degraded about 93% of the methylene blue dye (AM) in 120 minutes of solar irradiation, but the adsorption test showed a great deal of relevance in the discussion of the data. ZnO calcined at 800oC degraded almost 100% of the dye in only 15 minutes of UV irradiation. The study of the properties of ZnO was important to understand possible mechanisms of degradation of the AM and to know the effect of the structure of the semiconductor in processes of photocatalysis.