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Abstract Photocatalysis has been attracting much research interest because of its wide applications in renewable energy and environmental remediation. Among the photocatalysts, metal oxide semiconductors are the best choice due to distinctive properties, durability and cost effectiveness. Semiconductor nanoparticles display exciting and important physical and optical properties. Therefore in this thesis we paid a great interest for synthesizing transition metal oxide and sulphide nanoparticles and its potential application in photocatalytic degradation of organic dyes. The main scope of this thesis is to investigate a facile method to synthesize nanoparticles from its complexes and studying the effect of complex nature on the morphology and particle size of nanoparticles. The results revealed that the characteristics of nanoparticles are related to the geometry of the coordinated precursor. Also different routes including hydrothermal and solid state are investigated for the conversion of complexes to nanoparticles. The synthesized nanoparticles were evaluated as photocatalysts and showed efficient photoactivity.This thesis is composed of Four chapters as follows: Chapter one: presents a general and comprehensive introduction covering all the related topics in the work including the definition of nanomaterials with special focus on metal oxide nanoparticles. After that we presented the optical, chemical and electrical properties of metal oxide nanoparticles followed by its methods of preparation and closed the chapter with a detailed description of the photocatalysis process and mechanism. Chapter two: Presents the experimental part and the discussion for the synthesis of NiO, CuO and Co3O4 nanoparticles via solid state thermal decomposition of their corresponding coordinated metal precursors. also we studied the effect of the precursor structure on the characteristics of the obtained nanoparticles and characterized the nanoparticles via different techniques such as: XRD, XPS, UV-Vis and SEM. finally we assessed its photocatalytic activity toward the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue dye. Chapter three: Presents the experimental part and the discussion for the synthesis of TiO2 nanoparticles from its coordinated metal precursor via a novel modified hydrothermal method inside stainless steel autoclave. the synthesized nanoparticles were characterized via different techniques such as: XRD, XPS, UV-Vis, TEM and SEM. the finally we assessed its photocatalytic activity toward the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue dyeChapter four: Presents the experimental part and the discussion for the synthesis of ZnS quantum dots nanoparticles prepared via solvothermal method with PVP/PVA polymer blend. The synthesized nanoparticles will be characterized by XRD, TEM, HRTEM, raman spectroscopy and FT-IR. The photoluminescence spectra of the nanoparticles will be conducted. The photocatalytic activity of ZnS nanoparticles was assessed for the degradation of neutral red dye under UV irradiation. |