preparation, characterization, and application of nanospherical α-fe2o3 supported on silica for photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue

In the research, spherical α-fe2o3 nanoparticles (nps) were synthesized through forced hydrolysis and reflux condensation (fhrc) process and were supported on the surface of silica sand by solid-state dispersion (ssd) method. characterization of silica and α-fe2o3/sio2 catalyst was done using fourier-transform infrared (ft-ir) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (sem) images, x-ray diffraction (xrd) patterns and brunauer, emmet and teller (bet) surface area. the supported α-fe2o3/sio2 nanocatalyst with the average crystallite size of 27.5 nm was used for photocatalytic removal of methylene blue (mb) from aqueous solutions under ultra-violet (uv) light. in order to optimization of effective parameters on mb degradation, the single-variable method was used. the optimal conditions were determined as ph=11, initial concentration of mb=10 ppm, and the mass of catalyst =1.0 g. degradation efficiency in optimal conditions was 97.32%.