Enhanced Photoluminescence and Photocatalytic Efficiency of La-Doped Bismuth Molybdate: Its Preparation and Characterization.

Herein, a systematic study of the enhanced physicochemical properties of lanthanide doped (La-doped) bismuth molybdate (BiMoO) is performed. For this purpose, BiMoO and La-doped BiMoO were prepared by the sol-gel method. BiCl, NaMoO2HO, and LaCl·7HO were taken as the main precursors while sodium dodecyl sulfate was used as a surfactant. Both BiMoO and La-doped BiMoO were calcined at 650 °C for 2 h. These prepared materials were characterized by spectroscopic techniques such as UV-VIS, FT-IR, XRD, photoluminescence, XPS, along with other techniques such as SEM, TEM, TGA, etc. The investigation of luminescence behavior revealed that the La-doped BiMoO nanocomposite exhibited much greater luminescence compared to the undoped BiMoO. The photocatalytic behavior of the prepared materials was explored by studying the degradation of methylene blue (MB) at room temperature. The degradation of MB with BiMoO and La-doped bismuth molybdate were observed to be 68% and 75% @ 45 s, respectively, indicating an enhancement of catalytic performance due to the La doping.