Efficient degradation of Methylene Blue dye over highly reactive Cu doped strontium titanate (SrTiO3) nanoparticles photocatalyst under visible light.

Visible light induced photocatalysts of Cu doped SrTiO3 (Cu/SrTiO3) nanoparticles with the size -60-75 nm were prepared via facile sol-gel method. The morphological, optical, crystalline properties and compositions of synthesized Cu/SrTiO3 nanoparticles were thoroughly characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), ultra violet-visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis) and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX). A significant red shift in the UV-diffused reflectance spectrum was observed and the absorption edge shifted to visible region by the Cu doping. Surprisingly, the band gap of SrTiO3 was changed from 3.2 eV drop to 2.96 eV. The photocatalytic activity of the synthesized Cu/SrTiO3 nanoparticles was demonstrated for the degradation of Methylene Blue dye under visible light irradiation. The formation of new acceptor region in Cu/SrTiO3 was responsible for high photocatalytic activity of Cu/SrTiO3 nanoparticles. The results showed that the Methylene Blue dye was degraded by -66% within time span of 2 h over the Cu/SrTiO3 nanoparticles. This dye degradation reaction followed the Langmuir-Hinshelwood kinetics and also exhibited first order reaction rate. The calculated rate constant for the degradation reaction following first order kinetics was k = 0.0016 min(-1).