Er3+掺杂ZnWO4的合成及光催化活性研究
周宇, 张志洁, 徐家跃, 储耀卿, 尤明江
上海应用技术学院 材料科学与工程学院, 晶体生长研究所, 上海201418
摘要

通过水热法合成了不同浓度Er3+掺杂ZnWO4纳米棒, 并通过XRD、TEM和DRS等对其进行了表征。通过在模拟太阳光照射下光降解RhB的速度来检测ZnWO4样品的光催化活性, 研究了Er3+掺杂浓度对ZnWO4催化活性的影响。实验结果表明, 当Er3+掺杂浓度为2mol%时, 其光催化性能最好, 因为引进Er3+后, Er3+加快了电荷分离效率。

关键词: Er3+掺杂钨酸锌; 光催化剂; 罗丹明B; 电荷分离
中图分类号:TQ174   文献标志码:A    文章编号:1000-324X(2015)05-0549-06
Synthesis and Enhanced Photocatalytic Activity of Er3+-doped ZnWO4
ZHOU Yu, ZHANG Zhi-Jie, XU Jia-Yue, CHU Yao-Qing, YOU Ming-Jiang
Institute of Crystal Growth, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Institute of Technology, Shanghai 201418, China

Biography: ZHOU Yu(1989-), male, candidate of master degree. E-mail: zhouyu564022786@163.com

Corresponding author: ZHANG Zhi-Jie, PhD. E-mail: zjzhang@sit.edu.cn; XU Jia-Yue, Professor. E-mail: xujiayue@sit.edu.cn

Abstract

Er3+-doped ZnWO4 nanorods with different doping concentrations were synthesized by a hydrothermal method. The as-prepared products were characterized by XRD, TEM and DRS. The photocatalytic activities of the as-prepared ZnWO4 samples were evaluated by photo-degradation of RhB under simulated solar light irradiation and the effects of Er3+ doping on the photocatalytic activity of ZnWO4 were investigated. The result showed that the sample with the doping concentration of 2mol% exhibited the best photocatalytic performance, which could be ascribed to the promoted charge separation efficiency of Er3+-doped ZnWO4.

Keyword: Er3+-doped ZnWO4; photocatalyst; Rhodamine B; charge separation

Water pollution is one of the most serious environmental problems in modern society. Semiconductor- mediated photocatalytic degradation is a promising technique for wastewater treatment. In recent years, semiconductor-based photocatalysis has attracted more and more attention for solving environment problems, especially for the removal of organic contaminants under sunlight[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8].

Tungstates are widely used functional materials, and it has been confirmed that tungstates are a class of promising photocatalysts[9, 10, 11]. ZnWO4 as an important member of tungstates, due to its photocatalytic properties and potential applications, has received intense research attention[12, 13]. Up to now, ZnWO4has been used for water splitting and decomposition of organic pollutants under UV irradiation[14, 15, 16, 17]. However, improvement of photocatalytic activity of ZnWO4is still indispensable because the photo-activity of ZnWO4 is not high enough for the requirements of practical application.

It is known that the photocatalytic activity depends strongly on the separation efficiency of photo-generated electron-hole pairs. Up to date, great efforts have been made to facilitate the electron-hole separation and enhance the photocatalytic activity of ZnWO4, including cation doping[18, 19], anion doping such as fluorine or chlorine[12, 20, 21], and coupling with other semiconductors such as Bi2WO6[22] or ZnO[23]. Especially, doping of lanthanide ions with 4f electron configuration has been proposed as an effective way to eliminate the recombination of electron-hole pairs. For example, it has been reported that doping with Eu3+, Er3+ or Ce4+ could improve the photocatalytic activity of TiO2[24, 25], and doping with Er3+ could enhance the photocatalytic activity of Bi2WO6[26]. Inspired by those progresses, we intended to design a doped ZnWO4photocatalyst by introducing lanthanide ion Er3+. To the best of our knowledge, there are no reports on the photocatalytic activity of Er3+-doped ZnWO4.

In this work, Er3+-doped ZnWO4 photocatalysts were synthesized by a simple hydrothermal process. The product synthesized by this method had uniform phase and good crystallization. Moreover, the shape and size of the product could be controlled. The photo-activity evaluation, via the degradation of RhB under simulated solar light, demonstrated that doping appropriate amount of Er3+could enhance the photocatalytic performance of ZnWO4effectively. Moreover, the mechanism of the photocatalytic process for Er3+-doped ZnWO4was discussed in detail.

1 Experimental procedures
1.1 Synthesis

All chemicals used were analytic grade reagents without further purification. The experimental process of synthesizing Er3+-doped ZnWO4 photocatalysts was as follows: 1 mmol of Na2WO4· 2H2O was dissolved in 10 mL of deionized water to obtain solution A. Meanwhile, 1 mmol of Zn(NO3)2· 6H2O was dissolved in 10 mL of deionized water to obtain solution B. Then an appropriate amount of Er(NO3)3 solution was slowly added to solution A under stirring. After that, solution B was added to the mixed solution to obtain a white suspension. The pH value of the suspension was adjusted to 8 by the addition of NaOH solution, then sealed in a Teflon-lined stainless steel autoclave and heated at 433 K for 16 h under autogenous pressure. The obtained solid product was washed thoroughly with deionized water and dried at 333 K. In this work, the doping concentrations of Er3+were 0, 1mol%, 2mol%, 2.5mol%, 3.5mol%, 5mol%, and 7mol%, respectively.

1.2 Characterization

The phase and composition of as-prepared samples were measured by the powder X-ray diffractometer operated at 40 kV and 30 mA using Cu Kα radiation (λ =0.15418 nm). The morphologies of the products were obtained by transmission electron microscope (FEI tecnai G2F30). UV-Vis DRS was performed on a Cary 5000 UV-Vis spectrophotometer.

1.3 Photocatalytic test

The photocatalytic activities of the as-prepared samples were evaluated by the photocatalytic degradation of RhB under simulated solar light using a 500 W Xe lamp as the light source. The experiments were performed at room temperature as follows: 0.05 g of photocatalyst was added into 50 mL of RhB solution (1× 10-5mol/L). The suspensions were magnetically stirred in the dark for 0.5 h in order to ensure the adsorption/desorption equilibrium between the photocatalyst powders and the solution. 3 mL of suspensions were sampled every 0.5 h and centrifuged to remove the photocatalyst powders. Evaluation of the photocatalytic activities of the photocatalysts was conducted by recording the variations of the absorption band maximum through a UV-Vis spectrophotometer (Cary 5000) and the concentration of RhB was analyzed by recording the variations of the absorption band maximum (552 nm).

2 Results and discussion
2.1 Crystal structure

The XRD patterns of the as-prepared Er3+-doped ZnWO4 samples with different doping concentrations were shown in Fig. 1. All the peaks in the patterns matched well with the characteristic reflections of zinc tungstate (JCPDS 15-0774). No signals for any other phases were observed, which indicated that the products were pure phase and Zn2+ was successfully replaced by Er3+ and Er3+ was uniformly incorporated into the lattice.

2.2 UV-Vis spectra

Figure 2 showed the diffuse reflectance spectra (DRS) of pure ZnWO4 and the 2mol% Er3+-doped ZnWO4 sample. Fig. 1 Powder X-ray diffraction patterns for Er3+-doped ZnWO4 with different doping concentrations.It indicated that pure ZnWO4 presented an absorption edge around 400 nm. For the Er3+-doped ZnWO4 sample, there were also some sharp absorption bands originated from characteristic f-f or f-d transition of the Er3+ion. The transition peaks, which centered at 365, 378, 489, 520, 548, 653, and 795 nm, were attributed to the transitions of 4I15/24G9/2, 4I15/24G11/2, 4I15/24F7/2, 4I15/24H11/2, 4I15/24S3/2, 4I15/24F9/2, 4I15/24I9/2, respectively[27].

Fig. 1 Powder X-ray diffraction patterns for Er3+-doped ZnWO4 with different doping concentrations

Fig. 2 UV-Vis diffuses reflectance spectra of the as-prepared ZnWO4 samples

2.3 Morphology

The morphologies and microstructures of pure ZnWO4 and the 2mol% Er3+-doped ZnWO4 samples were investigated with TEM, as shown in Fig. 3. It could be seen clearly that the as-prepared samples exhibited nanorods structure, which indicated that Er3+ doping did not change the morphologies of ZnWO4. Moreover, pure ZnWO4nanorods were 35 nm in diameter and 40-60 nm in length (Fig. 3(a)) and the Er3+-doped ZnWO4 were 10 nm in diameter and 30-70 nm in length (Fig. 3(c)). This is because that doping Er3+ could influence the growing interface and finally change the diameter of ZnWO4 nanorods according to the chemical bonding theory of single crystal growth[28, 29]. The HRTEM images showed clear lattice fringes of d=0.247 nm for pure ZnWO4(Fig. 3(b)) and d=0.253 nm for Er3+-doped ZnWO4(Fig. 3(d)), which matched the d-spacing of the (021) plane of ZnWO4.

Fig. 3 Typical TEM and HRTEM images of the as-synthesized ZnWO4 samples (a, b) Pure ZnWO4; (c, d) 2mol% Er3+-doped ZnWO4

2.4 Photocatalytic activities of the catalysts

The absorption spectra of RhB after degradation by the 2mol% Er3+-doped ZnWO4 sample was shown in Fig. 4(a). It was clear that the absorption of RhB was negligible after 3 h, which indicated that RhB was degraded completely. The photocatalytic activities of the Er3+-doped ZnWO4 samples were determined by comparing the degradation efficiency of RhB under simulated solar light irradiation (Fig. 4 (b)). Blank test showed that the degradation of RhB was negligible in the absence of photocatalyst under light illumination. It could be seen that the photocatalytic activity of ZnWO4was enhanced with the introduction of Er3+ and reached a maximum with the doping concentration of 2mol%. Then the photocatalytic activity decreased when the doping concentration of Er3+ further increased.

Moreover, the comparison of the apparent rate constantkin Fig. 5 showed the 2mol% Er3+-doped ZnWO4 sample had the highest k value in the degradation of RhB (1.411 h-1), while that of pure ZnWO4 was only 0.534 h-1. In other words, the photocatalytic activity of the 2mol% Er3+-doped ZnWO4 sample was 2.64 times that of pure ZnWO4. This result indicated that Er3+ doping played an important role in the enhancement of the photocatalytic activity.

The photocatalytic activities of the 2mol% Er3+-doped ZnWO4 sample under different conditions were shown in Fig. 6. It could be seen clearly that when the pH value of the RhB solution was 3, the sample showed the highest photocatalytic activity (Fig. 6(a)). This is because the pH value can change the surface electrical property of ZnWO4 and its adsorption ability. Moreover, it could be seen from Fig. 6(b) that when the amount of the photocatalyst and the concentration of RhB were not changed, the more amount of RhB solution was, the weaker the photocatalytic activity was. When the amount of RhB solution increased, fewer photons could penetrate through the solution, which led to the decreased photocatalytic activity.

2.5 Mechanism of the enhanced photo-activities

It’ s known that the photocatalysis efficiency is determined by the competition between the charge separation process and the charge recombination process, and a desired photocatalyst is expected to promote the charge transfer process while suppressing the recombination process. The introduction of Er3+could facilitate the charge separation process in such a way: As illustrated in Fig. 7, the presence of Er3+ ions might cause the following steps[30, 31].

Fig. 4 The absorption spectra of RhB after degradation by the 2mol% Er3+-doped ZnWO4 sample
(a) and degradation efficiency of RhB by the as-prepared samples under a 500 W Xe lamp as a function of time (b)

Fig. 5 The rate constant k of Er3+-doped ZnWO4 with different doping concentrations

Fig. 6 Degradation efficiency of RhB by the 2mol% Er3+-doped ZnWO4 sample under different conditions
(a) Different pH values of the RhB solution; (b) Different amounts of the RhB solution

ZnWO4 + hv → ZnWO4(e-+h+) (1)

Er3+ + e- → Er2+(2)

Er2+ + O2→ Er3+ + O• 2- (3)

h+, O• 2- + RhB → degraded products (4)

In the photocatalytic process, the Er3+ ion trapped the photo-generated electrons and formed a reduction species Er2+ ion, and then the Er2+ could be oxidized back to Er3+ by the adsorbed oxygen. The electron-hole recombination rate could be reduced due to the recycle reactions. In addition, when Er3+ was introduced into the system, the substitution of Er3+ for Zn2+ led to the formation of [ErZn]+ defects. Meanwhile, [VZn]2-cation vacancies were generated for charge compensation. The {2[ErZn]+- [VZn]2-} defect groups could act as electron and hole traps, so as to inhibit the recombination and extend the lifetime of charge carriers. Therefore, appropriate doping amount of Er3+could enhance the photocatalytic process by suppressing the charge recombination effectively. However, when the doping concentration of Er3+ increased further, excess of Er3+could act as electron/hole recombination centers, which led to a decreased photocatalytic activity. So there existed an optimum doping concentration for Er3+.

Fig. 7 Schematic for the photocatalytic mechanism of Er3+- doped ZnWO4

3 Conclusion

Er3+-doped ZnWO4 photocatalysts were synthesized by a hydrothermal method. The effects of Er3+ doping on the photocatalytic activity of ZnWO4 catalysts were investigated. 2mol% Er3+-doped ZnWO4sample exhibited the highest photocatalytic activity, which was 2.64 times that of pure ZnWO4. The enhanced photocatalytic activity could be attributed to the higher charge separation efficiency brought by Er3+ doping. Our work indicates that the introduction of lanthanide ion could be a plausible strategy to develop efficient photocatalysts for environmental remediation and is worth to be extended to the preparation of other photocatalysts with high activity.

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