Auto-combustion synthesis of lanthanum-doped TiO ₂ nanostructures for efficient photocatalytic degradation of crystal violet dye

Abstract

Utilising the solution combustion technique, nanocrystalline photocatalysts that included both pristine TiO2 and doped TiO2 with various La (III) dopant percentages (1, 3, 5, and 7 mol%) were created. Different methods, including thermal analysis, high resolution-transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), were used to investigate the prepared nanostructures. The XRD results indicated the anatase form and the crystalline nature of the products (pristine and doped TiO2) in the size range of a crystallite (5–16.5) nm. The photocatalytic assessment of the prepared nano-photocatalysts was carried out by crystal violet (CV) decolourisation under ultraviolet (UV) light. The findings revealed that 3% La-TiO2 showed the highest degradation efficiency (95.98%) in 70 min with a pseudo-first-rate constant of k = 4.73 × 10−2 min−1, compared to pristine TiO2 and the other TiO2 nanostructures with various La (III) dopant ratios.