Exploring the effect gadolinium dopant concentration on NiO:Gd thin films obtained through simple method for enhancing the photocatalytic dye degradation
摘要
In this work, we have explained the discussion about growth of gadolinium-doped nickel oxide thin film by the successive ionic layer adsorption reaction technique elucidating the gadolinium doping on film structure, microscopy, composition, and optical spectroscopic measurements, and photocatalytic degrading activity of the deposited films is investigated. The materials’ properties are determined by techniques such as X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray analysis, and ultraviolet–visible spectroscopic measurements, respectively. The structural features reported that all the prepared films exhibit a cubic crystal structure, with prominent reflection along the (200) direction. The incorporation of Gd into NiO significantly enhances the surface area and porosity, as evidenced by BET analysis, promoting increased catalytic active sites. X-ray Photoelectron spectroscopy confirms successful Gd3⁺ doping and the creation of oxygen vacancies, which improve the charge separation and surface reactivity. X-ray diffraction analysis reveals enhanced crystallinity and structural stability in Gd-doped NiO, supporting its superior photocatalytic durability and performance. The dopant percentage in the range 2–10 produced a noticeable decrease in the crystallite size. Furthermore, the increase in dopant value leads to a shift in energy gap value between 2.67 and 3.7 eV. The dye degradation of methylene blue was found to be 90% with velocity constant value around 2.980 × 10–3 min−1.