Magnetic recoverable Fe3O4-TiO2:Eu composite nanoparticles with enhanced photocatalytic activity

This work refers to the influence of Eu doping on the morphologic, structural and compositional properties of magnetic separable Fe3O4-TiO2 composite nanoparticles with photocatalytic activity. In this respect, Fe3O4-TiO2:Eu nanocomposites were prepared by seed mediated growth of TiO2:Eu through a sol-gel method onto preformed magnetite resulted from co-precipitation method. Different Eu concentration precursors were used for doping. The thermal behavior and the conversion of precursors into corresponding Fe3O4-TiO2:Eu composite nanoparticles were evidenced by FT-IR spectra and thermal analysis. The XRD, XPS and HRTEM investigations results indicate that nanocomposites contain besides Fe3O4-TiO2:Eu some amounts of iron titanate. Formation of FeTiO3 is suppressed by the increase of Eu doping level. Magnetic studies also indicated that nanocomposite exhibit superparamagnetic behavior at room temperature. The large surface area and mesoporous structure of magnetic nanocomposite were confirmed by the surface area (BET) and porosity measurements. It was demonstrated that the composite nanoparticles exhibit good photocatalytic activity toward the degradation of RhB solution and they can be used as efficient and conveniently recoverable photocatalyst.