Synthesis of Fe3O4/N-TiO2/Ag Hollow Nanospheres and Their Application as Recyclable Photocatalysts

Photocatalysis has emerged as an advance and environmental-friendly process for breakdown of organic contaminants in waste water. This work reports facile synthesis and characterization of stable magnetically separable hollow spherical Fe3O4/N-TiO2/Ag and their effectiveness for photocatalysis. Scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, SQUID magnetometry, UV–Vis absorption spectrum and photoluminescence were performed to investigate the properties of the prepared magnetic photocatalyst. The photocatalytic efficiency of the prepared nanocatalyst was evaluated with decomposition of methyl orange (MO) under visible light and solar light illumination. Fe3O4/N-TiO2/Ag photocatalyst showed large enhancement in the degradation MO compared to undoped TiO2. Moreover, repeated usage of the photocatalyst proved its liability to be collected and reused.