Cost-effective synthesis method of facile environment
friendly SnO
2
nanoparticle for efficient photocatalytic
degradation of water contaminating compound
Sucharita Chakraborty, Mouni Roy and Rajnarayan Saha
ABSTRACT
The present study demonstrates an intensive experimental work based on the tin oxide (SnO
2
)
nanoparticle synthesis which was successfully carried out by a simple conventional precipitation
method followed by calcination at 700
C. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by X-ray
powder diffraction (XRD), UV–Vis spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), field
emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDAX).
The XRD pattern proves that tetragonal rutile structure SnO
2
nanoparticles were formed. The
crystallite particle size calculation from Scherer’s equation revealed the average size of 28.5 nm.
The absorption spectrum of SnO
2
nanoparticles showed absorption band at about 290 nm and the
band gap energy (E
g
) from Tauc plot was obtained at 3.8 eV. The photocatalytic degradation of
pharmaceutical compound, 4-aminopyridine (5 ppm) using synthesized SnO
2
nanoparticle, was
assessed. The effect of variable catalyst dosage, pH and irradiation sources, were studied.
The optimum catalyst dosage and pH were found to be 1.5 gm/L and 6.5, respectively. The
degradation efficiency of water contaminant 4-aminopyridine under UV light and solar light
irradiation for 120 min were found to be 97% and 11%, respectively. The reusability of the catalyst
was checked and has been found stable after three photocatalytic runs.
Sucharita Chakraborty
Mouni Roy
Rajnarayan Saha (corresponding author)
Department of Chemistry,
National Institute of Technology,
Durgapur 713209, West Bengal,
India
E-mail: rnsahanitd@gmail.com
Key words | 4-Aminopyridine, cost-effective, degradation, metal oxide nanoparticle, photocatalytic
activity, precipitation method
INTRODUCTION
Pharmaceutical, textile and chemical industries being the
cradle of all scientific and technical progress imparts
majorly for the advancement of human society. However,
these chemicals, when they find their way to the aqueous
environment, results in severe environmental pollution
that negatively effects the entire ecosystem. To get rid of
these toxic effluents, biodegradation was used traditionally.
The cost-effectiveness and low efficacy are the major disad-
vantages of the biodegradation process (Li et al. ). In the
field of wastewater treatment, employment of nanostruc-
tured materials has fascinated the researchers due to its
outstanding physico-chemical properties (An et al. ;
Ali et al. ; Al-Hamdi et al. ) which are dissimilar
from the bulk state (Bagheri-Mohagheghi et al. ).
The most widely used metal oxides such as zinc oxide
(ZnO) and titanium dioxide (TiO
2
) with wide band gap
semiconductors are used currently in the decontamination
of wastewater. Quite a number of previously published
works were centered on TiO
2
and ZnO for degradation
of organics. Many researchers reported that TiO
2
, ZnO
and tin dioxide (SnO
2
) are the most active catalysts for the
degradation of dyes, phenols and pesticides (Al-Hamdi
et al. ).
In this regard, there are few literature reports showing
the study of tin oxide (SnO
2
) of rutile-type crystal structure
making it a topic of immense interest for the researchers.
SnO
2
is a typical n-type semiconductor with a wide band
gap of about 3.6 eV (Viet et al. ). This low cost material
shows high electron mobility excellent optical, gas-sensing
properties and chemical stability (Hu et al. ) which
was widely used in sensors (Tripathy et al. ), solar cells
(Hara et al. ; Chen et al. ) and lithium ion batteries
508 © IWA Publishing 2020 Water Science & Technology | 81.3 | 2020
doi: 10.2166/wst.2020.130
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