Magnetically separable porous titanosilicate/Fe 3 O 4 hybrid nanocomposites with enhanced photocatalytic performance under UV light irradiation

Magnetically separable mesoporous titanosilicate-Fe3O4 (FTS) hybrid nanocomposite has been developed. The synthesized porous FTS were well characterized by various analytical techniques like XRD, field emission SEM, TEM, BET, FT-IR, and UV–Vis diffused reflectance spectra for morphological and chemical properties evaluation. FESEM and TEM results shows the growth of finely distributed Fe3O4 particles in the titanosilicate matrix, its porous FTS has a great influence on the electronic and optical properties. More significantly, the FTS nanocomposite exhibit enhanced photocatalytic activity for the degradation of methylene blue under UV light irradiation. The optimum photocatalytic activity of FTS15 at 15 wt% of Fe3O4 under visible light is almost 3.5 and fivefold higher than pure titanosilicate (TS) and pure Fe3O4 (FO) respectively. We conformed that synthesized FTS15 hybrid photo catalyst are highly stable even after five successive experimental runs by XRD spectra. The improved photocatalytic performance of the FTS15 hybrid nanocomposite under UV light irradiation was due to the synergistic effect of the pure TS and pure FO. Therefore, FTS15 hybrid photo catalyst is a promising candidate for energy conversion and environmental remediation.