Aqueous Chemical Synthesis of Nanosized ZnGa2O4 Using Mild Reaction Conditions: Effect of pH on the Structural, Morphological, Textural, Electronic, and Photocatalytic Properties

The effect of pH on the structural, textural, morphological, and electronic properties ZnGa2O4 nanoparticles obtained by coprecipitation using mild reaction conditions (25 °C; 30 min) was studied. ranges in which reactions occurred chemical species associated with mechanism were identified. It determined that samples synthesized at values between 6 10 consisted Zn-Ga oxide blends, spinel being majority phase. Conversely, material prepared 12 constituted layered double hydroxide phase along wurtzite ZnO traces. synthesis product yield, decreased from 51 to 21% when medium turned softly acidic (pH 6) strongly alkaline 12). bandgap energies materials estimated be range 4.71–4.90 eV. A coprecipitation-dissolution-crystallization proposed precipitation curve, specific mononuclear polynuclear involved formation different precipitates. Phenol employed as a probe molecule evaluate photocatalytic performance samples. Among samples, one showed largest photodegradation efficiency (~98%), superior commercial TiO2-Degussa P25 (~88%) under same process conditions, can attributed both its high surface area (140 m2 g−1) Zn2xGa2−2xO3+x/ZnGa2O4 heterojunction.