Abstract
PhD. (Chemistry)
Pre-synthesised gadolinium oxide decorated multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT-Gd) were coupled with titania to form nanocomposite photocatalysts (MWCNT-Gd/TiO2) using a sol-gel method. Rare earth metal ions (Eu, Nd and Gd), nitrogen and sulphur tridoped titania were decorated on MWCNT-Gd to yield composite photocatalysts (MWCNT-Gd/Eu/Nd/Gd/N,S-TiO2) by a similar method, using thiourea as nitrogen and sulphur source. Different carbon nanomaterials were incorporated into tridoped titania to form various composite photocatalysts (MWCNT/Gd,N,S-TiO2, MWCNT/Nd,N,S-TiO2, SWCNT (single walled carbon nanotube)/Nd,N,S-TiO2 and rGO (reduced graphene oxide)/Nd,N,S-TiO2) via the sol-gel method. Likewise, gadolinium doped graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4-Gd3+) was obtained by heating a mixture of gadolinium nitrate hexahydrate and cyanoguanidine and subsequently hybridised with MWCNT/TiO2 using the sol-gel method to yield composite photocatalysts with varying g-C3N4-Gd3+ loadings. All the prepared photocatalysts were characterised by microscopic tools (FE/FIB-SEM-EDX, TEM), crystallographic technique (XRD), spectroscopic tools (UV-Vis, Raman and FT-IR) and nitrogen sorption technique (BET).