Photocatalytic properties of SrTiO3 nanoparticles prepared by a polyacrylamide gel route

A polyacrylamide gel method has been used to prepare SrTiO3 nanoparticles. It is found that the choice of chelating agent has a great influence on the SrTiO3 synthesis. The use of citric acid as the chelating agent leads to the synthesis of pure SrTiO3 at a calcination temperature of 550 °C. By using the chelating agent acetic acid, however, a much higher calcination temperature at 800 °C is required to produce a single sample. The citric acid- and acetic acid-resulted samples exhibit both sphere- particle morphology, and have an average particle size of ~ 55 nm and ~ 100 nm, respectively. The photocatalytic properties of the as-prepared SrTiO3 nanoparticles have been investigated by the degradation of Congo Red, RhB, MO, and MB under ultraviolet irradiation. The citric acid-resulted sample is found to exhibit a photocatalytic activity higher than the acetic acid-resulted sample, expectedly due to its relatively smaller particle size. In addition, different degradation efficiencies are found between the dyes, and the highest degradation efficiency is observed for Congo Red.

► A polyacrylamide gel method has been used to prepare SrTiO3 nanoparticles. ► It is found that the choice of chelating agent has an effect on the SrTiO3 synthesis. ► The nanoparticles exhibit a photocatalytic activity for degradation of various dyes. ► The photocatalytic efficiency is observed to be different with CR > MB > RhB > MO.