Fabrication of Fe3O4/SiO2/ZnO photocatalytic composite with core/shell/shell and characterized its

The magnetic photocatalyst Fe3O4/SiO2/ZnO was synthesized by sol-gel method. For this purpose, in the first stage, Fe3O4 particles were prepared as the magnetic core of this composite and using the carbon recovery method. In the second stage, the coating of the SiO2 shell was performed using the tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) precursor. In the end, the zinc oxide shell was deposited using a zinc hydrate nitrate precursor on the Fe3O4/SiO2 composite. The as-prepared nanostructures were characterized by environmental scanning electron microscopy analysis (FESEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Vibrating Sample Magnetometer (VSM) and Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX). FESEM and TEM results confirmed the coating of silica and zinc oxide on core particles and the Fe3O4/SiO2/ZnO magnetic photocatalyst was successfully prepared. The particle size mean of Fe3O4 was 300 nm approximately. The silica shell thickness was 25 nm, and the thickness of the zinc oxide shell was about a few nanometers approximately. The VSM results showed that coating of silica and zinc oxide shells reduced the saturation magnetization (Ms) of Fe3O4 powder so that the saturation magnetization decreased from 80/8 emu/g to 48/8 emu/g, which It is suitable for Magnetic Recovery. Photocatalytic properties of Fe3O4/SiO2/ZnO composite were studied on methylene orange degradation under UV light irradiation. Destruction of orange methylene was achieved 70%.