Sol-gel synthesis of LaFeO3/ZnO composite as promising photocatalyst

Perovskite (LaFeO3), zinc oxide(ZnO), and the composite of perovskite and zincoxide (ZnO/LaFeO3) were prepared using sol-gel method. The prepared photocatalysts were characterized by FTIR, XRD, FESEM and UV-Vis spectroscopy analysis. Subsequently, the photocatalytic properties of prepared materials were investigated in degradation of congo red dye under visible light irradiation. The results showed that ZnO/LaFeO3 composite possesses higher photodegradation ability compared to ZnO and bare LaFeO3 photocatalysts. Recently perovskite-type oxide materials have attracted considerable attention because of their useful application in many fields. LaFeO3 is one of the important perovskite materials widely reported for various applications including solid oxide fuel cells, sensors, catalysts and magnetic storage/recording etc. In recent years, the LaFeO3 has attracted as a photocatalyst. LaFeO3 can maximize the use of sunlight, So it has been developed as a new type of efficient photocatalyst driven under thevisible light irradiation. ZnO is also considered as a promising photocatalyst because of its low price and nontoxicity, but its large band gap (3.2 eV) limits its usage as photocatalyst under sunlight irradiation. In this work, we synthesized LaFeO3, ZnO, and the composite of perovskite and zincoxide (ZnO/LaFeO3) species and used them in photocatalytic degradation of congored dye.