• Karna, Sunil
• Guragain, Deepa
• Karna, Roma
• Karna, Priya
• Mishra, Sanjay

Abstract

<jats:p>A set of experiments was conducted to synthesize doped and undoped sodium tantalates with carbon and sulfur in energy efficient single-step hydrothermal process. Undoped sodium tantalate nanocubes were synthesized at 140 °C and doped one at 180 °C for 12 h in rich alkaline atmosphere. The sizes of undoped, carbon-doped, and sulfur-doped sodium tantalate nanocubes were 38 nm, 45 nm, and 40 nm, respectively. The morphological, elemental, compositional, structural, thermal, and photophysical properties of as-synthesized doped and undoped sodium tantalate (NaTaO<jats:sub>3</jats:sub>) were characterized using scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy dispersive x-ray spectroscope (EDS), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometer (FTIR), and UV-vis spectrophotometer. The sulfur doped NaTaO<jats:sub>3</jats:sub> shows a higher photocatalytic activity in degradation of methylene blue than carbon doped and the undoped NaTaO<jats:sub>3</jats:sub>. The band gaps of undoped NaTaO<jats:sub>3</jats:sub>, carbon doped c-NaTaO<jats:sub>3</jats:sub>, and sulfur doped s-NaTaO<jats:sub>3</jats:sub> were calculated to be 3.94 eV, 3.8 eV, and 3.52 eV, respectively using Tauc plot.</jats:p>

Topics

• Carbon
• scanning electron microscopy
• x-ray diffraction
• experiment
• Sodium
• thermogravimetry
• Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy
• Raman spectroscopy
• gravimetric analysis