Photocatalytic Activity of Soft Magnetic Fe80-xCoxZr10Si10 (x=0, 40, and 80) Nanocrystalline Melt-Spun Ribbons

Abstract

In this study, Fe80-xCoxZr10Si10 (x = 0, 40, and 80 at.%) alloys were produced in the form of ribbons by melt-spinning technique to investigate the photocatalytic degradation efficiency of methylene blue dye. The color removal performance of these ribbons has been studied in detail. The X-ray diffraction analysis of the fabricated melt-spun ribbons confirmed the nanocrystalline nature with varying the Co content. The scanning electron microscopy analysis depicts the surface roughness increased Co content and the energy dispersive spectroscopy reveals that the experimental nominal composition values are quite close to each other. The vibrating sample magnetometer was used to study the magnetic properties of all three samples and from the M-H curves, it was confirmed that the magnetic properties were strongly dependent upon the alloy ribbons composition during melt-spinning. The time-dependent photocatalytic degradation of the methylene blue sample was investigated under UV light using UV-Vis spectrometry at room temperature. It was observed that the amount of degradation increased due to the increase in the amount of cobalt in Fe80-xCoxZr10Si10 (x = 0, 40, and 80) alloys used as a catalyst in methylene blue using photocatalytic degradation.