Growth and Gd doping of ZnO nanostructures with enhanced structural, optical properties and photocatalytic applications

Abstract

In this study, pure and Gadolinium doped ZnO (Gd-ZnO) nanoparticles have been synthesized by wet chemical method and the effect of Gadolinium incorporation on the structure and optical activity of ZnO was examined. The average size of the undoped ZnO and Gd-ZnO (0.002 M and 0.003 M) nanoparticles was found to be 48 nm, 44 nm and 42 nm respectively which shows the lattice compression of ZnO after Gd doping. TEM study shows the hexagonal nanocrystallites of Gd-ZnO with size around 45 nm is formed. FTIR study shows the metal-oxygen band below 600 cm−1 and absorbance study gives the information about the narrowing of band gap of ZnO after Gd doping. The photocatalytic degradation efficiency of Gd-ZnO (92 %) has been found to be better as compared to undoped ZnO (89 %) in degrading methyl blue (MB). The photodegradation of MB is found to follow first order kinetics.

Multifunctional properties of gadolinium doped annealed zinc oxide nanoparticles

“…Satpathy et al studied the influence of Gd 3+ ion doped ZnO nano rods for different concentrations and proposed that these type of nano rods are useful materials in magnetic media devices, spintronic as well as in biomedical applications [24]. Dash et al studied the Gd doped ZnO nanostructures and proposed that these nanoparticles are enhance photodegradation efficiency [25]. According to the above literature survey, it is understood that the ZnO nanoparticle preparation with different concentrations was studied.…”