Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3
J Mater Sci: Mater Electron
DOI 10.1007/s10854-017-7430-4
Facile synthesis of NiCo
2
O
4
with the aid of amino acid to achieve
the highest carriers for degradation of Acid violet 7
Farshad Beshkar
1
· Omid Amiri
1
· Seyed Ali Hashemizadeh
2
· Zahra Salehi
1
Received: 7 May 2017 / Accepted: 27 June 2017
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2017
Among these methods photocatalytic degradation tech-
nique has received signifcant attention in the last few dec-
ades because of using low-cost and environment-friendly
materials such as NiCo
2
O
4
[12, 13].
The photocatalytic reactions on semiconductors have
been utilized for many applications, such as water purifca-
tion, air cleaners, and so on. An ideal photocatalyst should
have several properties such as suitable energy band gap,
excellent photo-stability, low cost, low recombination rate
for charge carriers, and a nontoxic nature [14–16]. Up now,
variety of semiconductors such as TiO
2
, ZnO, Fe
2
O
3
, SnO
2
,
and WO
3
have been used as photocatalysts [17, 18]. Photo-
catalytic activity can be enhanced by engineering morphol-
ogy, tuning band gap, and preparing core shell and com-
posites with other materials [12, 13, 19, 20] Cobalt–nickel
oxides (NiCo
2
O
4
) got great attention because of their prom-
inent advantages of low cost, natural abundance and envi-
ronmental friendliness. To date, many eforts have done to
improve its photo-catalytic activity. For instance preparing
core-ring structured NiCo
2
O
4
Nano platelets as electro-
catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction. Till now, verity of
synthetic routes such as hydrothermal, solve-thermal etc
were used to prepare NiCo
2
O
4
[21, 22]. In this research, we
have used combustion to prepare NiCo
2
O
4
nanostructures.
Firstly we prepared [Ni(en)
2
(H
2
O)
2
](NO
3
)
2
and [Co(en)
3
]
(NO
3
)
3
complex as precursor of nickel and cobalt. Then we
used diferent amino acids including GLYCINE, VALINE,
GLUTAMINE, LYSINE, and PHENYLEAL ANINE as
gelling agent. We study the efect of amino acid type and
ratio of amino acid: metal precursor on the morphology of
prepared nanostructures. In addition, photocatalitic activity
of as-prepared nanostructures was evaluated by degradation
of Acid violet 7 as organic pollution.
Abstract The present work is focused on the engineer-
ing of the morphology of NiCo
2
O
4
nanostructure to achieve
the highest photocatalytic activity. To achieve this goal, the
efect of diferent parameters such as type of amino acid
(including GLYCINE, VALINE, GLUTAMINE, LYSINE,
and PHENYLEAL ANINE) as gelling agent, its ratio and
calcination temperature are investigated. NiCo
2
O
4
prepared
using GLUTAMINE (Calcination temperature was 500 °C)
shows the highest photocatalytic activity for degradation of
Acid violet 7 under UV light which can be attributed to its
higher optical absorption ability, smaller particle size, and
its narrow band gap.
1 Introduction
In last decade, water pollution raises much concern due to
the water crisis and the fast development of industry [1–4].
Organic dye and compounds containments because of their
complex aromatic molecular structures play a major role
in the pollutants. These molecular structures make them
stable and resistant to degrade in water [5–7]. Therefore,
the removal of organic pollution before disposal in envi-
ronment is necessary. Up to now verity of methods, such
as electrochemical process, membrane separation, chemi-
cal oxdiation, photochemical degradation and adsorption,
have been used for the removal of organic pollution [8–11].
* Omid Amiri
o.amiri1@gmail.com
1
Young Researchers and Elites Club, Arak Branch, Islamic
Azad University, Arak, Iran
2
Physics Department, Faculty of Science, Payame Noor
University, PO Box 19395-3697, Tehran, Iran