Beilstein J. Nanotechnol.2015,6, 605–616, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.62
confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and UV–vis spectroscopy: the incorporation of Tm3+ was confirmed by the generation of new absorption bands that could be assigned to Tm3+ transitions. Furthermore, when the samples were annealed at 1173 K, a pyrochlore phase (Tm2Ti2O7) mixed with TiO2 was
obtained with a predominant rutile phase. The photodegradation of methylene blue showed that this pyrochlore phase enhanced the photocatalytic activity of the rutile phase.
Keywords: nanoparticles; photocatalysis; pyrochlore; titanium dioxide; thulium; Introduction
TiO2 is one of the most efficient
[5]. TiO2 doping with metallic elements has also been reported, using for example niobium [6], silver [7] or copper [8] as dopants. Many pyrochlore-type compounds (A2B2O7) have been studied to evaluate their semiconductor properties for photocatalytic applications. For example, it is possible to find
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Figure 1:
XRD patterns of the samples synthesized.