Decorating mechanism of Mn3O4 nanoparticles on reduced graphene oxide surface through reflux condensation method to improve photocatalytic performance

A simple and effective route has been developed to synthesize reduced graphene oxide/Mn3O4 (rGO/Mn3O4) nanocomposites in which Mn3O4 nanoparticles are grown on reduced graphene oxide surface. The synthesized nanocomposite materials were characterized by different techniques. X-ray diffraction (XRD) confirmed the formation of rGO/Mn3O4 nanocomposites and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) study revealed that Mn3O4 nanomaterials with average size 5-8 nm were embedded on rGO surface and with the increase of Mn3O4 content the particle size increases due to aggregation. Furthermore, Mn3O4 nanomaterials were successfully applied to degrade the organic dyes in water but compared to Mn3O4 nanomaterials the rGO/Mn3O4 nanocomposites are found to most heavily enhance the dye degradation efficiency under solar light irradiation due to large surface area of rGO surface. Moreover, the rGO/Mn3O4 nanocomposite materials exhibited good photostability, which was proved by their consistent photocatalytic performance.