Perovskite Alkaline Earth Titanates Based Nanomaterials as Photocatalysts

Abstract

The research thesis entitled ‘Perovskite alkaline earth titanates based nanomaterials as photocatalysts’ deals with the synthesis, characterization and photocatalytic studies of some doped perovskite alkaline earth titanates and porous graphene-perovskite alkaline earth titanate nanocomposites. The present study reports the successful synthesis of seven different series of novel perovskite alkaline earth titanate-based materials namely, Rh-doped SrTiO3, V-doped SrTiO3, porous graphene-SrTiO3 nanocomposite (PGST), Rh-doped BaTiO3, porous graphene-BaTiO3 nanocomposite (PGBT), V-doped CaTiO3 and porous graphene-CaTiO3 nanocomposite (PGCT) using facile solvothermal/hydrothermal method. All the synthesized materials were carefully characterized for their elemental composition, structural, morphological, and optical properties by employing appropriate techniques such as XRD, FESEM, EDS, TEM, HRTEM, Raman Spectroscopy, XPS, BET, DRS, and PL spectroscopy. Thereafter, each material was investigated for its catalytic efficiency towards the degradation of methylene blue dye under visible light irradiation. The synthesized materials exhibited enhanced photocatalytic efficiency which could be attributed to the efficient visible light harvesting capacity and reduced rate of recombination of photoinduced charges.