Hydrothermal synthesis and characterization of Dy-doped CeVO<inf>4</inf> nanorods used for photodegradation of methylene blue and rhodamine B

Abstract

Pure CeVO4 and Dy-doped CeVO4 nanorods containing different weight contents of Dy dopant were synthesized by hydrothermal method. Effect of Dy dopant on photodegradation of methylene blue (MB) and rhodamine B (RhB) was evaluated under UV light irradiation within 80 min. Pure CeVO4 and Dy-doped CeVO4 nanorods were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and UV–visible spectroscopy. In this research, CeVO4 nanorods are tetragonal phase with the detection of main peak shift after being doped with Dy. The length of nanorods is deceased from 50 to 200 nm for pure CeVO4 to 50–100 nm for 3% Dy-doped CeVO4. Photodegradation of MB and RhB by CeVO4 nanorods under UV light irradiation is improved by Dy-dopant that plays the role in accepting electrons and reducing electron–hole recombination. MB and RhB solutions degraded by 3% Dy-doped CeVO4 nanorods was 94% and 93% within 80 min, respectively.