Facile synthesis of ZnFe2O4/SnO2 composites for efficient photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue

Abstract ZnFe2O4/SnO2 (ZFO/SnO2) composites were fabricated via a facile solution combustion synthesis (SCS) method for methylene blue (MB) degradation. The crystallite and morphology characterizations revealed that ZFO/SnO2 composites have relatively small crystallite and particle size compared to pure ZFO. The introduction of SnO2 remarkably improved the photocatalytic performance of pure ZFO catalyst. Specifically, ZFO-SnO2 (10%) exhibited the highest photocatalytic degradation rate constant of 0.01970 min-1 in the composites, approximately 3.08 and 2.64 times higher than that of single ZFO (0.00640 min-1) and SnO2 (0.00747 min-1), respectively. The band alignment analysis showed that the improvement of photocatalytic activity was due to the improved charges separation efficiency in the ZFO/SnO2 composite. ZFO-SnO2 (10%) with H2O2 showed the highest photo-Fenton degradation rate constant of 0.05301 min-1 and could remove 95.2% of MB within 60 min under irradiation.