J. Roselin Jeyaseeli, A. Philominal, P. Jaikumar, Varuna Kumaravel, Senthil Kumar Sadasivam
{"title":"Band gap tuning of Ce doping in Zn:Zr system for enhanced visible light-driven photocatalysis","authors":"J. Roselin Jeyaseeli, A. Philominal, P. Jaikumar, Varuna Kumaravel, Senthil Kumar Sadasivam","doi":"10.1007/s10854-024-13734-7","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The environmental threat posed by industrial dyes necessitates the development of efficient photocatalytic systems for their degradation. This study focuses on the Ce-doped Zn:Zr system as an innovative solution for visible-light-driven photocatalytic degradation of textile dyes offering significant environmental and industrial benefits. The Ce-doping effect on the photocatalytic efficiency of the Zn:Zr system was investigated. Both undoped and Ce-doped Zn:Zr systems exhibited hexagonal nanostructures with high atomic percentages of Zn, while Ce was incorporated at lower percentages. X-ray diffraction confirmed the unaltered hexagonal ZnO, tetragonal, and monoclinic ZrO<sub>2</sub> crystal structures in the systems. The peak broadening in the Ce-doped samples indicates successful doping. Even the tiniest alteration in band gap resulted in a dramatic increase in methylene blue dye degradation up to 98.4%, significant at <i>p</i> < 0.05. This enhanced efficiency is attributed to the heterogeneous pairing mechanism which improves charge carrier separation with superoxide anions and singlet oxygen identified as the primary reactive species. The findings demonstrate the applicability of band gap engineering in organic pollutant degradation and highlight the potential of Ce-doped Zn:Zr systems as a cost-effective and energy-efficient solution for industrial wastewater management.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":646,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics","FirstCategoryId":"5","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10854-024-13734-7","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ENGINEERING, ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONIC","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The environmental threat posed by industrial dyes necessitates the development of efficient photocatalytic systems for their degradation. This study focuses on the Ce-doped Zn:Zr system as an innovative solution for visible-light-driven photocatalytic degradation of textile dyes offering significant environmental and industrial benefits. The Ce-doping effect on the photocatalytic efficiency of the Zn:Zr system was investigated. Both undoped and Ce-doped Zn:Zr systems exhibited hexagonal nanostructures with high atomic percentages of Zn, while Ce was incorporated at lower percentages. X-ray diffraction confirmed the unaltered hexagonal ZnO, tetragonal, and monoclinic ZrO2 crystal structures in the systems. The peak broadening in the Ce-doped samples indicates successful doping. Even the tiniest alteration in band gap resulted in a dramatic increase in methylene blue dye degradation up to 98.4%, significant at p < 0.05. This enhanced efficiency is attributed to the heterogeneous pairing mechanism which improves charge carrier separation with superoxide anions and singlet oxygen identified as the primary reactive species. The findings demonstrate the applicability of band gap engineering in organic pollutant degradation and highlight the potential of Ce-doped Zn:Zr systems as a cost-effective and energy-efficient solution for industrial wastewater management.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics is an established refereed companion to the Journal of Materials Science. It publishes papers on materials and their applications in modern electronics, covering the ground between fundamental science, such as semiconductor physics, and work concerned specifically with applications. It explores the growth and preparation of new materials, as well as their processing, fabrication, bonding and encapsulation, together with the reliability, failure analysis, quality assurance and characterization related to the whole range of applications in electronics. The Journal presents papers in newly developing fields such as low dimensional structures and devices, optoelectronics including III-V compounds, glasses and linear/non-linear crystal materials and lasers, high Tc superconductors, conducting polymers, thick film materials and new contact technologies, as well as the established electronics device and circuit materials.