Sol-gel synthesis and characterization of Gd-doped SnO2 nanoparticles for water treatment and spintronic applications

The goal of the current work is to identify the structural, magnetic, and optical properties of Gd-doped SnO(2 )nanoparticles and their potential use in the treatment of water contaminated with dye. These Gd-doped SnO2 (Gd = 0%, 0.5%, 1.5%, 3%, 5%) samples were prepared by the cost-effective sol-gel approach. XRD & FTIR were used to study structural properties and to confirm that the synthesized samples have single-phase crystalline nature. Using XRD Crystallite size have been calculated and found to be in the range 12.14-9.60 nm. Particle size obtained from HRTEM lying in the range 15.94-9.86 nm which was in well agreement with XRD. Raman, PL and XPS spectroscopy were utilized to investigate defects/oxygen vacancies in the lattice. Magnetic investigations indicate that the magnetic character of synthesized samples with maximum magnetization3.95 x 10(-3 )emu/g for Gd 5%. UV-DRS further showed that the band gap was reduced up to 5% Gd (E-g = 3.68 eV) in comparison to pure SnO2 (E-g = 3.81 eV) due to the formation of vacancy defects. In comparison to pure SnO2, Gd-doped SnO2 (Gd 5%) was found to have a maximum photodegradation efficiency of 95.64% in 60 min under UV irradiation for Rose Bengal dye. Henceforth, it can be concluded that SnO2 is a remarkable multifunctional material having uses in spintronic devices and as a catalyst in the degradation of organic dyes because of the improvement in the ferromagnetic character and enhancement in catalytic behavior on incorporation of rare-earth ions.