A Comparative Photocatalytic Activity of ZnO/SiO-2 and V_2O_5-ZnO/SiO_2 by Investigating the Degradation of Rhodamine B

Zno/sio_2 was prepared using sol-gel method, and vanadium particles were loaded on this nano-photocatalyst by wet incipient method. they characterized by x-ray diffraction (xrd), scanning electron microscopy (sem), energy dispersive (edx) analysis andfouriertransform infrared spectroscopy (ft-ir). the xrd patterns showed that the zinc oxide samples have a wurtzite structure and vanadium doped is in v_2o_5 crystalline structure. the particle sizes werearound 32 nmcalculated using scherrer’s equation. for photocatalytic test, decomposition of rhodamine b(rb), as an organic pollutant, was carried out. the photocatalyst v_2o_5- zno/ sio_2 was found to be more efficient as compared with zno/sio_2.