Synthesis and characterization of biomimetic of Zinc Oxide

Abstract

This research explores the preparation and characterization of zinc oxide catalyst prepared by using mint and pine leaves as template respectively and investigation of its catalytic activity for the photoreduction of Fe3+ ions. The synthesized zinc oxide was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-Ray Powder Diffraction (XRD) and Brunauer Emmett Teller (BET). Besides, the synthesized zinc oxides were used as catalyst for photoreduction of Fe3+. The effects of various parameters like time, initial concentration of Fe3+ and effect of solar light in the photocatalytic study were investigated. Photocatalytic study is one of the effective processes in the mitigation of environmental pollution. Thus, it can reduce organic molecules through redox reaction activity through the electron hole pair that generate on metal oxide semiconductor. In this study, ZnO will act as photocatalyst since it can demonstrate high photocatalytic efficiency and Fe3+ will be used as stock solution. Based on result, mint-templated ZnO shows the highest Fe3+ removal efficiency which is 79%.