Comparative photocatalytic activity of sol-gel derived rare earth metal (La, Nd, Sm and Dy)-doped ZnO photocatalysts for degradation of dyes.

ABSTRACT: Rare earth metal doping into semiconductor oxides is considered to be an effective approach to enhance photocatalytic activity due to its ability to retard the electron-hole pair recombination upon excitation. Herein, we report the synthesis of different rare earth metal (La, Nd, Sm and Dy)-doped ZnO nanoparticles using a facile sol-gel route followed by evaluation of their photocatalytic activity by studying the degradation of methylene blue (MB) and Rhodamine B (RhB) under UV-light irradiation. Different standard analytical techniques were employed to investigate the microscopic structure and physiochemical properties of the prepared samples. The formation of the hexagonal wurtzite structure of ZnO was established by XRD and TEM analyses. In addition, the incorporation of rare earth meta

SUBMITTER: Alam U 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9080395 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature