EUROPEAN CONGRESS AND EXHIBITION ON ADVANCED MATERIALS AND PROCESSES - EUROMAT 2021

Metal oxides are currently one of the most promising families of multifunctional materials. Among them, ZnO stands out as one of the most investigated due to properties such as its wide bandgap (3.2 eV), its high excitonic energy (60 meV), its capacity as a photocatalytic material or its potential use as an antibacterial. Transition metal or rare earth doping can improve these properties. In the particular case of Nd, the appearance of new electronic levels within the gap can favor both the luminescent emission of the material and its efficiency in photocatalysis.
In this work, nano- and microstructures of ZnO doped with Nd have been obtained by means of the vapor-solid (VS) method. For this, ZnS and Nd2O3 powders mixed in different proportions (1, 5 and 10% by weight of Nd2O3) have been used as precursors. The mixtures have been subjected to a mechanical grinding process for 5 h, pressing them and then thermally treat at 900ºC for 10 h under a constant flow of N2. The structures obtained by are characterized by having a hexagonal section needle and bar morphology. The crystal structure has been determined by X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy, confirming the incorporation of Nd in the wurtzite structure. The compositional analysis has been carried out by means of energy dispersion X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) in the scanning electron microscope (SEM). Luminescent properties have been investigated by photo- and cathodoluminescence (PL and CL, respectively). Finally, the photocatalytic behavior has been evaluated and compared for conventional dye and emerging pollutants.