Abstract
We report the effect of Pr doping on structural, morphological, optical, photocatalytic properties and heavy-metal ion sensing behavior of 3D flower-like SnO2 nanostructures synthesized using hydrothermal method by varying Pr concentration from 0 to 10 mol%. The synthesized samples have been characterized by various analytical techniques. The results indicate that the morphology of SnO2 nanostructures can be tailored by changing the Pr-dopant concentration in a reasonable range. Crystallographic studies reveal the lattice distortion with an increase in Pr doping concentration in SnO2 host lattice. Moreover, the photocatalytic activity of SnO2 studied by the degradation of Rhodamine-B (RhB) dye in aqueous media shows excellent performance on 10 mol% praseodymium doping, which may be attributed to its specific morphology, smaller size and larger surface area as seen from BET measurements. Further, the sensors based on 10 mol% Pr-doped SnO2 nanostructures shows highest fluorescence quenching efficiency (0.22) as compared to pure SnO2 and other doped samples at lowest concentration of Cd2+ (0.01 μg/ml) in drinking water with Limit of Detection (LOD) as low as 0.008 μg/ml. The possible formation mechanism of Pr-doped SnO2 nanostructures and the heavy metal-ion sensing mechanism of sensors has been proposed and discussed in detail.
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