PHOTOCATALYTIC APPLICATIONS OF SYNTHESISED AI GUM STABILIZED COBALT DOPED ZnO NANOPARTICLES

In the present work, we have synthesized Azadirachta indica gum (AI gum) stabilized cobalt (Co) doping on ZnO (Co: ZnO NPs) using a conventional wet chemical method and structural, morphological, optical properties of obtained AI-Co: ZnO NPs were studied. Average particle size and shape of AI-Co: ZnO NPs were observed using high-resolution Schottky emitter FE-SEM. The surface morphological images of FE-SEM exhibit that all the particles were spherical. From UV-Visible Spectroscopy (UV) analysis, the absorption intensity was slightly shifted to lower wavelength due to variation in the cobalt concentration and the bandgap was increased with an increase in doping percentage of cobalt. The calculated band gap energy was 3.55 eV, 3.57 eV and 3.59 eV for AIZn0.97Co0.03O, AI-Zn0.95Co0.05O and AI-Zn0.93Co0.07O nanoparticles, respectively. The chemical functional group or molecular structure of AI-Co: ZnO NPs was studied using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy technique. The degradation of Methylene Blue (MB) was found to be 48%, 58% and 74% for 0.01 g, 0.02 g and 0.03 g of 0.5% cobalt doped AI gum stabilized Co-doped ZnO nanoparticles.