Mechanical Alloying in Zeolitic Imidazolate Framework for Enhanced Photocatalytic Dye Degradation.

A ball milling approach has been performed for isostructural ZnZIF-8 and CoZIF-8 in a 1:1 molar ratio to produce the amorphous ( a ) solid solution state ( a Zn 0.5 Co 0.5 ZIF-8). It further transformed to a crystalline ( c ) solid solution state ( c Zn 0.5 Co 0.5 ZIF-8) by exposing 95% relative humidity (RH) at 25 °C for 72 h. Unique heterometal solid solution structure and high catalytic active sites of a Zn 0.5 Co 0.5 ZIF-8 showed excellent photocatalytic performance for the degradation of methylene blue dye under visible light source. The catalytic efficiency of a Zn 0.5 Co 0.5 ZIF-8 (97.9%) is much higher than the pristine ( p ) as well as the amorphous state ( a ) of ZnZIF-8/CoZIF-8 and c Zn 0.5 Co 0.5 ZIF-8.