Facile synthesis and characterization of erythrocyte-like Y-doped PbWO4 mesocrystals and their photocatalytic activity

•Novel erythrocyte-like Y-doped PbWO4 mesocrystals are firstly synthesized via a facile co-precipitation route.•The mesocrystals are assembled by small nanoparticles a common crystallographic fashion.•The erythrocyte-like mesocrystals exhibit well photocatalytic activity.•A recrystallization-growth-oriented attachment formation mechanism is proposed.

Novel erythrocyte-like Y-doped PbWO4 mesocrystals with average diameter and thickness of 1.5 and 0.7 μm are fabricated via a facile co-precipitation route at room temperature in the ethylene glycol (EG)-water mixed solvent. Time-dependent samples centrifuged at different times are carefully characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (pXRD), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and Raman spectrum. The possible formation mechanism for the novel erythrocyte-like mesocrystals is proposed on the basis of these observations. The photocatalytic activity of the Y-doped PbWO4 mesocrystals is further investigated in terms of the degradation of the acid orange II under UV irradiation. This simple and environment-friendly strategy presented here offers promising route for the synthesis of other inorganic materials with unique morphologies and interesting properties.

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