Synergistic effect of Eu~(3+) and Sm~(3+) co-doped on photocatalytic activity of TiO_2 powder

Pure TiO2 and Eu3+ and Sm3+ co-doped TiO2 composite nano-particle were prepared by sol-gel method and characterized by the techniques such as XRD,DRS and SEM.The photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue(MB) in aqueous solution was used as a probe reaction to evaluate their photocatalytic activity.The mechanisms of effects of Eu3+ and Sm3+ co-doped on the photocatalytic activity of the TiO2 composite nano-particles were also discussed.The results show that Eu3+ and Sm3+ co-doped can significantly enhance the photocatalytic activity of TiO2 nano-particles.The co-doped of Eu3+ and Sm3+ shows a synergistic effect for photocatalytic activity of TiO2 nano-particles,can inhibt the phase transformation from anatase to rutile and decrease the diameter of TiO2 nano-particles.The matrix distortion of TiO2 nano-particles increases when the Eu3+ and Sm3+ have co-doped and the blue-shift of the absorption profile are clearly observed.When the co-doped amounts for Eu3+ and Sm3+ are 0.05% and 0.1%,the photocatalytic activity of TiO2 can be markedly improved,and its degradation rate reaches 84.8%.