Cobalt-Doped Aluminum Aerogels as Photocatalyst Fabricated by a Liquid Metal Reaction Method in the Laboratory

Abstract

Pollution and its treatment have been major challenges for society over the past few decades. We designed a laboratory experiment for junior and senior undergraduates who major in physics, chemistry engineering, or material science, aiming to improve students’ interests in material exploration and photocatalyst development and characterization. In order to ensure that students can understand systematic learning, our entire experiment includes sample synthesis and characterization. We introduced the students to an experiment to develop a method to fabricate cobalt-doped aluminum hydroxide aerogels by using liquid metal as the precursor and sacrificial agent, which is extremely simple and environmentally green compared to conventional aerogel synthesis methods. The physical properties of the synthesized samples are studied by various characterization methods, including X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and UV–visible light spectroscopy. The degradation results of our samples under different conditions illustrate the photocatalytic mechanism of cobalt-doped aluminum hydroxide aerogels and show that the photocatalytic efficiency can be significantly enhanced by a moderate doping ratio of cobalt. This interdisciplinary experiment provides students with design ideas for efficient photocatalytic materials and provides a new way to familiarize themselves with the general process of material synthesis, characterization, and photocatalytic degradation. It is also a good training for shaping students’ ability of literature reading, hands-on experiments, data collection, and their analyzing ability of fundamental mechanisms beneath the experimental phenomena.