Shock Synthesis of Zinc Ferrite and Its Photocatalytic Activity in Dehydrogenation of H2S

Zinc ferrite fine powders were synthesized from a very uniform mixture of nanometer zinc oxide and nanometer ferric oxide powders, by using shock compression techniques up to pressures 37 GPa, or by conventional high temperature calcination at 700 ℃ for 10 h. Both types of samples were used as a photo-catalyst in the dehydrogenation of H2S. Results show that shock synthesized zinc ferrite exhibits much higher photo catalytic activity and is a factor of 3 larger than that of the calcinated, which increase with the shock pressures under which the catalyst was synthesized. In contrast, photo catalytic activity of single component catalyst of ZnO and Fe2O3 decreases as the shock conditioning pressure increases. Characteristics of the XRD patterns of shock synthesized zinc ferrite along with its TEM features and Mossbauer spectra indicate that the enhancement in catalytic activity of photo-dehydrogenation may be attributed to the formation of the very fine and highly non-stoichiometric zinc ferrite during shock synthesis processing.