In this work, highly compacted and stable Cadmium Selenide/Titanium Dioxide (CdSe/TiO2 ) heterostructure has been designed through a low cost and easy electrochemical deposition strategy for improving simultaneous photoelectrochemical and photocatalytic performances.

Total catalytic oxidation of toxic and carcinogenic isopropanol alcohol (IPA), widely used as a solvent and cleaning fluid, is still one of the most recognized low cost and efficient techniques to remediate indoor environmental pollutants. Our Study aims to the design of a low cost, high and stable nickel oxide-based catalyst for the total oxidation of IPA into organic compounds of carbon dioxide and water under conditions close to those of a normal environment. In a first step, the preparation and characterization by various physicochemical methods of Nickel oxide has been done. Nickel oxide has been crystallized in a face-centered cubic structure with an average grain size at 35.5 nm. FTIR analysis confirmed the XRD results by exhibiting well- defined peaks related to Ni-O bonds which indicate the high quality of the synthesized samples. Textural properties show the good texture of NiO based-catalyst with a specific surface area of 3 m2/g, an average pore diameter of 189 Å and a pore volume of 0. 09 cm3/g. The DTG/DTA investigations showed the resistance of nickel oxide to the thermal treatment with a measured weight loss of 1.761 % which could be assigned to the dehydratation of the sample and a second weight loss related to the loss of carbon dioxide. Scanning electron microscopy shows that the NiO nanoparticles consist of irregularly shaped grains interconnected with each other

In this work, the effect of annealing atmosphere on structural and optical properties of silver-doped ZnO thin films (SZO) have been investigated. Silver-doped zinc oxide thin films (SZO) deposited onto glass substrates are synthesized using sol– gel technique via spin coating. XRD analysis reveals that the Ag incorporation leads to a decrease in grain size in ZnO: Ag thin films annealed in air and under nitrogen atmospheres. Conversely, an increase in grain size was noticed for Ag doped ZnO thin films annealed under oxygen flow. All films are highly transparent in the visible region for different annealing treatment environment. In addition, band gap energies were found to decrease after Ag doping as compared to those of pure ZnO thin films post-annealed in different atmospheres. As compared to pure ZnO thin films, an increase of the photoluminescence intensity was noticed.