Photocatalytic activities of Ba2RBiO6 (R = La, Ce, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Dy) under visible light irradiation

Abstract

We succeeded in synthesizing Ba2RBiO6 (R = La, Ce, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, and Dy) with a double-perovskite structure. Its photocatalytic activities were then investigated for a degradation of methylene blue (MB) solution and gaseous 2-propanol (IPA). High photocatalytic activities were observed under visible light irradiation and also a rare earth dependence of photocatalytic activities in the IPA degradation. We carried out first-principle calculations of the band structure based on the all-electron Full-potential Linear Augmented Plane-Wave (FLAPW) method and discuss the relationship between the high photocatalytic activities and the band structure in this paper. © 2010 The Ceramic Society of Japan.