TY  - JOUR
AB  - Hematite (?-Fe2O3) and pseudobrookite (Fe2TiO5) suffer from poor charge transport and a high recombination effect under visible light irradiation. This study investigates the design and production of a 2D graphene-like r-GO/GO coupled ?-Fe2O3/Fe2TiO5 heterojunction composite with better charge separation. It uses a simple sonochemical and hydrothermal approach followed by L-ascorbic acid chemical reduction pathway. The advantageous band offset of the ?-Fe2O3/Fe2TiO5 (TF) nanocomposite between ?-Fe2O3 and Fe2TiO5 forms a Type-II heterojunction at the Fe2O3/Fe2TiO5 interface, which efficiently promotes electron-hole separation. Importantly, very corrosive acid leachate resulting from the hydrochloric acid leaching of ilmenite sand, was successfully exploited to fabricate ?-Fe2O3/Fe2TiO5 heterojunction. In this paper, a straightforward synthesis strategy was employed to create 2D graphene-like reduced graphene oxide (r-GO) from Ceylon graphite. The two-step process comprises oxidation of graphite to graphene oxide (GO) using the improved Hummer's method, followed by controlled reduction of GO to r-GO using L-ascorbic acid. Before the reduction of GO to the r-GO, the surface of TF heterojunction was coupled with GO and was allowed for the controlled L-ascorbic acid reduction to yield r-GO/GO/?-Fe2O3/Fe2TiO5 nanocomposite. Under visible light illumination, the photocatalytic performance of the 30% GO/TF loaded composite material greatly improved (1240 Wcm-2). Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) examined the morphological characteristics of fabricated composites. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman, X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) served to analyze the structural features of the produced composites.
AU  - Usgodaarachchi, L
AU  - Jayanetti, M
AU  - Thambiliyagodage, C
AU  - Liyanaarachchi, H
AU  - Vigneswaran, S
DA  - 2022/12/23
DO  - 10.3390/ma16010139
JO  - Materials (Basel)
PB  - MDPI
PY  - 2022/12/23
SP  - 139
TI  - Fabrication of r-GO/GO/?-Fe2O3/Fe2TiO5 Nanocomposite Using Natural Ilmenite and Graphite for Efficient Photocatalysis in Visible Light.
VL  - 16
Y1  - 2022/12/23
Y2  - 2026/07/23
ER  -