Sonosynthesis and Characterization of ZrO2/ TiO2/ZnO Ternary Nanocomposite for Photodegradation of Congo red

In this research, the ternary nano-composite ZrO2/TiO2/ZnO has been prepared by sol-gel technique under ultrasonic irradiation. For preparation of the nano-composite, Firstly, the sols of ZnO, TiO2 and ZrO2 were directly mixed together. After that, the agents were added to form the gel of nanocomposite. The reaction mixture was stirred continuously for 24 hours.And then it placed under ultrasonic irradiation for 30 min. Finally,the filtrated composite gel was washed and calcinated at 500 °C in furnace for 3h. X-ray powder diffraction patterns exhibited well-formed crystal structure, crystalline phases and purity of the produced nanoparticles (NPs).The FT-IR analyses indicated that the positions of peaks related to Zn-O, Ti-O and Zr-O absorption bands does not change in nano-composites. In addition, FESEM images indicated the spherical uniform morphology of the NPs. The mean particles size is 30 nm. The photo-degradation performance of Congo red (as a water pollutant) was obtained. Particle size and band gap of nano-catalyst were considered as important factors on its performance [1-3].