title: The Gadolinium (Gd3+) and Tin (Sn4+) Co-doped BiFeO3Nanoparticles as New Solar Light Active Photocatalyst.
abstract: The process of photocatalysis is appealing to huge interest motivated by the great promise of addressing current energy and environmental issues through converting solar light directly into chemical energy. However, an efficient solar energy harvesting for photocatalysis remains a critical challenge. Here, we reported a new full solar spectrum driven photocatalyst by co-doping of Gd3+and Sn4+into A and B-sites of BiFeO3simultaneously. The co-doping of Gd3+and Sn4+played a key role in hampering the recombination of electron-hole pairs and shifted the band-gap of BiFeO3from 2.10 eV to 2.03 eV. The Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) measurement confirmed that the co-doping of Gd3+and Sn4+into BiFeO3increased the surface area and porosity, and thus the photocatalytic activity of the Bi0.90Gd0.10Fe0.95Sn0.05O3system was significantly improved. Our work proposed a new photocatalyst that could degrade various organic dyes like Congo red, Methylene blue, and Methyl violet under irradiation with different light wavelengths and gave guidance for designing more efficient photocatalysts.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Syed
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Irfan
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, School of Natural Sciences (SNS), National University of Science and Technology (NUST), Islamabad 44000, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Syed
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rizwan
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Liangliang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.lastname: Asfandiyar
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Institute of Space Technology, Islamabad, 44000, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Sajid
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Butt
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Ce-Wen
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Nan