Fabrication of visible-light-responsive TiO2/α-Fe2O3-heterostructured composite for rapid photo-oxidation of organic pollutants in water

In this present work, a visible-light-responsive TiO2/α-Fe2O3-heterostructured nanocomposite was fabricated by hydrothermal and ultrasonication methods. To unravel the physicochemical and optical characteristics, the as-fabricated photocatalysts were characterized by PXRD, FT-IR, HRSEM, HRTEM, UV–Vis DRS absorption, and PL analysis, respectively. The optical band gap (Eg) of TiO2 and TiO2/α-Fe2O3 were found to be 3.21 and 2.72 eV, respectively. The photocatalytic efficiency of TiO2/α-Fe2O3 composite photocatalyst was evaluated towards the degradation of aqueous methylene blue (MB) dye under visible-light irradiation. The results showed that the heterostructured α-Fe2O3/TiO2 catalyst exhibits faster and higher removal efficiency of (20 ppm) MB dye (92.7%) than the other photocatalytic degradation of pristine TiO2 (33%) and α-Fe2O3 (47.3%) within 100 min. The enriched photocatalytic efficiency is due to the enhanced visible-light response following by interfacial charges transfer between TiO2 and α-Fe2O3 which in turn allows the formation of a high yield of separated electron–hole (e−/h+) pairs and produced of reactive oxygen species. On top of the enhanced photoactivity, TiO2/α-Fe2O3 showed great stability and recycling ability which may encourage its transfer to real use towards the purification of wastewater.