SYNTHESIS, CHARACTERIZATION OF ND DOPED SILICA NANOCOMPOSITES AND ITS PHOTOCATALYTIC ACTIVITY

Abstract

In this work, Nd/SiO2 nanocomposites were prepared with different loading of neodymium oxide on silica by using solgel method. The sol-gel method represents an attractive alternative because of its relatively low processing temperature and patterning of the nanostructures with controlled size. The synthesized materials were characterized by using High resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HR-TEM) showed the formation of nanostructure. Energy Dispersive XRay Analysis (EDX) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) confirmed the presence neodymium silicon oxide phase (Nd9.35 Si6 O26) with nano size 15.4 nm. Synthesized nanocomposites were studied for photocatalytic activity by methylene blue and showed higher activity for 4wt.% Nd/SiO2