Nanocrystalline ZnO doped lanthanide oxide: An efficient photocatalyst for the degradation of malachite green dye under visible light irradiation

Visible light induced semiconductor photocatalysis has received a great attention in recent years due to the contamination of water bodies. In the present study, we have reported the photo catalytic degradation of a toxic organic dye, malachite green using a ZnO doped Dy2O3 photo catalyst under visible light irradiation. The nanocrystalline photocatalyst was prepared by a precipitation method employing the respective nitrates and sodium carbonate as precursors and were characterized by FT-IR, XRD, UV-Vis DRS, FE-SEM and AFM analysis. The experimental results proved that the prepared photo catalysts were crystalline, nanosized and highly active in the visible region. UV-Vis DRS results suggested that the band gap was 3.1 eV for the prepared photo catalyst. The photodegradation efficiency of malachite green was analysed by various experimental parameters namely pH, catalyst dosage, variation of substrate concentration and effect of electrolyte addition. The photo degradation process followed a pseudo first order kinetics and was continuously monitored by UV-Visible spectrophotometer. The degradation of malachite green was above 99% within 1 h of visible light irradiation employing the doped photocatalyst, whereas pristine metal oxide possessed only 67% and pristine lanthanide oxide possessed activity which was only due to photolysis. A plausible mechanism for the generation of OH radicals and the pathway for MG dye degradation has been proposed in this study. The experimental results clearly show that nanocrystalline semiconductor doped lanthanide oxides are highly active under visible light irradiations and may find wider applications in environmental remediation technologies. (C) 2015 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B. V. on behalf of King Saud University.