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 () solid solution state (ZnCoZIF-8). It further transformed to a crystalline () solid solution state (ZnCoZIF-8) by exposing 95% relative humidity (RH) at 25 °C for 72 h. Unique heterometal solid solution structure and high catalytic active sites of ZnCoZIF-8 showed excellent photocatalytic performance for the degradation of methylene blue dye under visible light source. The catalytic efficiency of ZnCoZIF-8 (97.9%) is much higher than the pristine () as well as the amorphous state () of ZnZIF-8/CoZIF-8 and ZnCoZIF-8.