Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy Characterization of Iron Based Spinel

Nano-Catalysts
N. Benhadria1 , A.Elaziouti2, N.Laouedj1, E. Sari-Mohamed1

1- Laboratoire de Chimie des Matériaux Inorganiques et Application L.C.M.I.A, Université des sciences et de la technologie d’Oran
Mohammed Boudiaf (USTO M.B). BP 1505 El M’naouar 31000 Oran, Algérie
2- Laboratoire de Microscope Electronique et Science des Matériaux L.M.E.S.M, Université des sciences et de la technologie d’Oran
Mohammed Boudiaf (USTO M.B). BP 1505 El M’naouar 31000 Oran, Algérie

naceur.benhadria@univ-usto.dz

This work is devoted to the synthesis of optical responsive iron spinels based nanocatalysts by citric acid
assisted sol-gel method. The as-prepared materials were characterized by XRD, SEM-EDX and UV-vis DRS.
Results indicated that iron spinels with nickel element crystallized in Fd-3m single-phase and exhibited smaller
crystallite size (49 nm vs. 59.24 nm) than that of the pure zinc iron spinel powder. The SEM analysis showed
that the materials are elongated-like shape. As shown in Figure.1, the spinel catalyst with nickel content 0,6
atom per molecule exhibited a red-shift of absorption bands and a more narrowed bandgap as compared to pure
material[1]. Urbach energy increased from 0.185 to 0.200 eV with increasing the Ni-content indicative of the
fact that electrons encounter larger extent of disorder while transiting across the band gap.

Figure 1. (αhv)2 (a) and (αhv)1/2 (b) versus hv plots for zinc-iron (ZF) and nickel-zinc-iron (NZF) oxides

This findings, show that these optical responsive materials after visible light excitation could be used as
potential catalysts in environmental remediation.

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degradation of 4-chlorophenol”, Chemosphere, 82, 581(2011).
[2] Z. Jia , D. Ren , Y. Liang and R. Zhu, “A new strategy for the preparation of porous zinc ferrite nanorods with subsequently light-
driven photocatalytic activity”, Mat Letters , 65, 3116(2011).
[3] A. Hassanien and A. Ak , “Influence of composition on optical and dispersion parameters of thermally evaporated non-crystalline
Cd50S50−xSex thin films” , J Alloys and Compd, 648 , 280(2015).