Photocatalytic behavior of mixed oxide NiO/PdO nanoparticles toward degradation of methyl red in water

Mixed oxide NiO/PdO nanoparticles were successfully prepared by a facile chemical co-precipitation route and were characterized by x-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive x-ray analysis (SEM-EDX), UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectrophotometry (UV-DRS), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) method and thermal analysis (TGA) techniques. The photocatalytic activities were assessed using methyl red as a model azo dye and the efficiency of the system was evaluated with respect to irradiation time, pH, catalyst load and initial concentration. The pseudo-first-order equation was revealed to fit degradation rate. The results show that the mixed oxide NiO/PdO catalyst has a high photo catalytic performance of 98% toward methyl red degradation and show good photostability.